


Perhaps Vampire is a Bit Strong But...

by saekokato



Series: Slayer'verse [1]
Category: Bandom: Fall Out Boy, Bandom: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-16
Updated: 2009-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekokato/pseuds/saekokato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Bob does a good deed and is punished. Pete Wentz is now in his life, and with Pete come a myriad of things Bob had seen in that monster movie marathon last month (up to and sometimes including Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley, and Matt Cortez). And Brian still refuses to pay Bob what he's worth. He wants top shelf, damn it, especially if he has to deal with Pete Wentz for the foreseeable future and deal with the pets of gods sprouting prophesies about something that should have been a myth.</p><p>Then, just to make matters worse, Bob meets Frank Iero and his Gang of Incompetent Misfits. Sometimes Bob thinks he would have preferred to have been eaten in that alley.</p><p><i>"Vampires exist. Werewolves, demons, shapeshifters, zombies, every terrifying monster you ever feared was hiding under your bed is real, and a lot of them want to eat you for dinner."</i></p><p>"Some of them even live under your bed!" Joe adds helpfully. "Just for the added convenience."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perhaps Vampire is a Bit Strong But...

This is a nightmare. He stares down at the bodies laying around him – Brian's head and wrist are twisted at wrong angles, some short, punk-rock wannabe kid with dark hair and more tattoos than skin with a sword planted in his chest, the broken body of a slender black girl in a school girl skirt and tie, others too far away for Bob to distinguish – surrounded by the small blue feathers littering the ground. Bob knows that this can't be real. Isn't real.

Just a nightmare.

Bob surveys the scene again, then looks up at the sun, bright and clear in the sky. There's no sound here, not even from the wind that is swirling some of the feathers around his feet. Bob knows that here everything good is dead.

He would have expected the sun to be anything but bright and clear. And hot. The fucking sun is still really, really fucking hot.

Bob looks at the sun for a long time, not that he has any way to really measure the passing of time; he just knows. Finally, he gets sick of just staring. He turns away from the sun and the bodies, and he walks back to the van with feathers twirling in his wake.

Bob doesn't know the how or the why just yet, but those things can be figured out. He isn't going to let the apocalypse happen on his watch.

|-|

Bob is never letting Brian talk him into doing sound for free again. If Bob's ears have to endure this torture, Bob needs to be paid first. In cash. And supplied with alcohol after.

"Shut up, asshole," Brian mutters. He glares at Bob over the mouth of his long neck. "What the fuck do you think is in your hand right now?"

"Nothing strong enough to relieve the suffering you've inflicted on my tender ears," Bob replies. "I want the good shit."

Brian rolls his eyes. "Please, bitch, you aren't worth the good shit." He swallows the last of his beer before he gestures to the bartender for another round.

"Our relationship has changed so much since you took that new position, baby," Bob says mournfully. He pouts around his bottle as he finishes his own beer off.

Brian glares at him some more. Honestly, Bob thinks Brian could be on the Olympic team for glaring. Brian's just that good. "I will kick your ass, Bryar. Don't think I won't."

Bob sighs. He's fucking exhausted, and the cheap alcohol isn't helping matters. "The romance has gone from our relationship," he tells the bartender when he drops off two more bottles. "He used to bring me such lovely things."

The bartender snorts. "Quit your bellyaching, kid. The band was actually halfway decent tonight; better than the last time they came through here, at least." He takes their empties and leaves with one last glare. Bob decides to take that comment as a compliment toward his skills as an engineer.

"He could totally take you in the glare Olympics, man. Hate to break it to you," Bob tells Brian. "What?"

Brian shakes his head. "Okay, no more for you." He pushes the second bottle out of Bob's reach. Then he takes a pull from his own, eyebrow raised in a silent taunt at Bob.

"You are an asshole, Schechter," Bob pouts. For real this time. He tries for the bottle, but has to grab onto the bar when his lunge almost tips him off the stool. "I just want you to know that."

"And you're drunk, Bryar. You'll thank me tomorrow for cutting you off now." Brain passes the bottle off to the lead singer responsible for Bob's abused eardrums. The singer grimaces at the label, but shotguns the beer anyway before he stumbles off again.

"And you're worried about me being drunk?" Bob asks. He watches the singer run into his bassist, who pulls him into a headlock and gives him a half-assed noogie. Bob can't believe he's spent the last month in a van with those idiots. He's not sure if the fact that Brian's paying for the (cheap) alcohol in the wake of that experience is enough to tip the scales or not.

Brian snorts. "I don't have to deal with those assholes again. You, on the other hand, are driving back to Chicago with me. I know what kind of a bitch you are when you're hungover, Bryar, and I don't want to deal with it."

Bob blinks. "Wait. You're coming back to Chicago? What happened to spending 'a few days in town, Bryar. See my mom before she puts a hit out on me'?"

"My mother will understand," Brian says dryly. "Besides, the band keeps trying to talk me into sticking around and managing their next tour."

"Aw, you're scared of a bad emo-punk band!" Bob laughs. When all Brian does is glare at him, not bother with an attempt to bluff his way out of that one, Bob's laugh turns into a giggle. Bob lets his head fall onto the arm he has on top of the bar, not even trying to hold his laughter in.

"Like you wanted to take the fucking bus back to Chicago anyway, Bryar." Brian punches Bob's other arm until he stops laughing. "All right, lightweight, if you're done, I want to get some sleep before the next millennium." He slings an arm over Bob's shoulders to pull him to his feet.

Bob pushes Brian's arm off of his shoulders. "I need to take a piss. I'll meet you outside."

"Are you sure you can handle that by yourself?" Brian laughs as Bob stumbles off in the direction of the bathrooms. Bob just flips him off. He finds his footing and balance after a few stumbling missteps.

It's just Bob's luck that he has to pull a couple of assholes off of the shit band's bassist. He doesn't even bother to find out why the scuffle started – he doesn't care, he's fucking tired, and he really has to fucking piss – but he can feel both assholes' eyes on him when he walks away.

The feeling hasn't left by the time he's washing his hands. Only. He's alone in the bathroom. Bob stares at himself in the mirror. There are dark, dark circles under his eyes and his skin would be a pale gray-green if it wasn't so flush from the (cheap) alcohol. Bob's exhausted, and he's totally imagining things. Fucking Brian and his fucking superstitions. It's starting to turn Bob into a paranoid fuck, which. Seriously, no.

Bob pushes his way out of the bathroom, almost stumbling over a couple short dudes who are just standing outside of the door. He scowls at them as he passes, but doesn't bother to expend anymore energy. Especially because they look and smell like seven-day-binge hobos.

The feeling is still there when Bob finds Brian outside. He's smoking a cigarette and watching the band scuffle by their van. He offers Bob his pack. "Idiots."

"Yeah," Bob agrees. He pulls one out of the pack and lights up. The first pull feels like something clearing the cobwebs out of his mind, and he knew he was more exhausted than he was drunk. "Not your idiots, though," he points out. He rolls his shoulders, trying to displace the tightness between the blades.

"Thank fuck," Brian sighs. They watch the drummer bounce the lead guitarist's head off the van door, then fall over laughing. Brian jerks his head toward the alley, which is darker than the admittedly dim-lit parking lot. Meaning there's one streetlight in the middle of the alley still working in comparison to the four in the parking lot. "Motel's that way."

Bob starts walking. It's a little chilly outside – summer just starting to edge into fall – but Bob keeps his hands out of his pockets. That feeling of being watched is growing, as is the tightness between his shoulder blades. Bob doesn't want to be caught off guard. Brian gives him a weird look, but doesn't say thing.

He does keep his hands free though. Bob wonders idly what his face looks like right then.

They're about halfway down the alley when every hair on the back of Bob's neck stands on end. He glances around, but there isn't anything to see. Just the vaguest shadows of trash bins and a dumpster lining the one of the walls. He's about to tell Brian to hurry the fuck up when a figure fucking materializes from the alley wall.

The figure is followed by more until there are five blocking the alley in front of them. Bob can't see the faces on four of them, but the leader – a taller, almost bulky dude in too much leather – looks like he'd been dropped face first in a vat of acid.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here, boys?" The guy asks, grinning at Bob and Brian. His teeth are disgusting – all yellow and jagged. Bob's almost tempted to ask him if he'd tried chewing scrap metal for fun.

"Looks like a midnight snack, boss!" The smallest of the other four squeaks. He even bounces up and down a few times.

Bob and Brian exchange a confused look. "Are they for real?" Bob asks.

Brian shrugs. "I'm not sure. I don't think I've had enough to be hallucinating."

"Yeah, and I didn't think I was that tired," Bob agrees.

"Aw, look, boss! They're trying to be funny!" Squeaky giggles, still bouncing.

One of the other four hits Squeaky upside the back of head, growling, "Shut up. You're putting me off my appetite."

"Hey!"

"Enough!" Boss growls. It's a nasty sound, all low with a gravelly undertone, and goosebumps spring up along Bob's arms. The sound reminds Bob of Mr. Mitchell's mutt when it cornered Ms. Levy's poodle. Both dogs had to be put down after that fight.

"I think we should go," Brian says quietly.

Bob nods, taking a step backwards.

"Hey, no. No running off. You've been invited to stay for dinner!" Boss says. He waves a hand, and the other four guys start toward Bob and Brian. They move into the street light, and they all look like their boss – bumpy foreheads, yellow eyes, and sharp, sharp teeth.

Brian lets out a shaky laugh. "No, actually, we're not all that hungry, but thanks anyway."

"Sorry, but dinner isn't for you," Boss smiles at Brian. "It is you."

"Better luck next time, meatheads," other voices growls from behind Bob and Brian.

Bob twists sideways, trying to keep one eye on the five coming for them, who have pulled up short with the arrival of six more guys who look almost identically ugly as the first five. Bob sucks in a breath when he realizes he recognizes two of them as the assholes from the bar.

"Back off, plebian. We saw them first," Boss snaps.

"Please, I tagged the big one in the bar," other leader-guy scoffs. He even points helpfully at Bob.

Bob scowls at nothing in particular. It isn't his fault that Brian is practically a fucking midget. Standing next to him makes anyone look big.

"Now look what you've done! That's going to sour the blood," Boss pouts. He points at other leader-guy. "If I end up with indigestion, I'm blaming you, Marco."

Marco starts to answer, but as he's opening his mouth, something pointy protrudes from his chest. Everyone gapes at it for a moment. Then he explodes into dust, followed quickly by the guy next to him.

"What the..." someone breaths. It might even be Bob, because that was more than a little shocking, and time seems to screech to a halt, and there's a hobo standing right behind where Marco and the other guy had just been, and the new guy's holding a pointy stick in each hand.

Stick-hobo-guy gives Bob a big grin. It's full of bright, flat teeth. Bob has about one second to think, "Hey. He looks familiar." before everything explodes into motion.

Someone slams into Bob's side, knocking them both to the ground, right on top of a pile of ... something slimy, and Bob can not deal with that right now. He's having trouble breathing, probably because of the smallish person on top of him, and Brian is shouting something vague, sounding a thousand miles away even though he can't have gone more than six feet, and that's all Bob needs to be shoving at whoever the asshole holding him down is. Judging from the growling noises – high pitched, gravely, and inherently terrifying – it's Squeaky come to play.

Squeaky probably expects Bob to be too terrified and/or dazed to fight back, which is probably the only reason Bob's able to shove Squeaky back enough to deck him. Because, seriously? Squeaky is ridiculously strong. But deck him Bob does, and Squeaky isn't expecting that either.

Bob's rolling to his feet even as Squeaky falls off of him, clutching his bloody nose and squealing in a pitch not meant for human ears. Bob doesn't have the chance to find stable footing before a dirty hand grabs his arm and pulls him out of the way of another diving and freakishly ugly gang member.

Said dirty hand is attached to an extensively sleeved arm. Said tattooed arm is attached to a tiny, skinny dude with long hair and glasses. He's also wielding a sharp pointy stick, which he drives straight into Fugly's chest. Fugly explodes and Dirty-hobo is handing him an extra stick that he pulls from somewhere Bob didn't notice because he was too busy trying not to choke on the ash of exploding Fugly.

Bob wants to know when his life turned into a B-fucking-horror movie. Seriously.

"Stake to the heart, just like in the movies," Dirty-hobo explains before diving back into the fray.

Bob takes a second to reevaluate. And start breathing again. He remembers his mom mentioning that was an important life function. Yeah, only that'd been right about the time she'd fished him out of his grandfather's lake because a ten-year-old Bob hadn't been as awesome a swimmer as he'd thought. Bob still maintains that something had been trying to pull him under, but. Whatever. Ugly gang members set to attack mode to contend with: definitely not the time to be reminiscing.

Squeaky is nowhere to be seen, and no one is paying Bob any mind, for the moment at least. Bob has his back to the wall on one side of the alley, and he can see Brian about ten feet up the alley. He's pressed against the bricks with two other hobo-sharp-stick-carrying guys standing between him and four extra-fugly gang members (vampires? What the fuck?), who descend on the three of them with their hands curled into claws and matching growls that are even more frightening than Squeaky's. Probably because the sounds aren't pitched into the dog-and-tiny-girl-children's octaves.

Stick-hobo-guy and Dirty-hobo are each fighting two others further down the alley. Boss and Squeaky are long gone.

Hobos Number 3 and Number 4 each take out a fugly gang member slash vampire (Seriously, just. No) a piece before Number 3 is slammed into Number 4 by one of the remaining two. Number 3 is larger than Number 4, mostly because Number 4 is totally just a huge white man's 'fro with working limbs, and they both fall into a pile of garbage bags off to their side. Their pointy sticks (stakes? Seriously. What the fuck?) fly out of their hands on impact.

Both fuglies ignore the two on the ground, and start toward Brian, who doesn't have a weapon and is caught between the dumpster and the discarded pile of refuse slash hobos Number 3 and Number 4. Bob knows Brian, has known Brian for years at this point, knows just how bad Brian is at being cornered, and Bob almost feels bad for the two descending on him. Almost. It's like pitying the bad guy in the movie during the final showdown, when you know he's about to have his ass torn off and handed to him all nice on a sparkly, silver platter.

That said, Bob is moving the second Number 3 and Number 4 hit the ground. He isn't exactly sure what he's going to be able to do against creatures that explode on impalement, but he's hoping a lifetime of horror movies and several years as a band tech will come in handy.

Brian barrels his shoulder into the gut of one of the vampires just as Bob grabs the second and spins him around by the arm. Bob raises the pointy stick in the same motion and slams it home as soon as the thing's chest is clear. Fugly number-who-gives-a-fuck explodes, and Bob inhales another lung full of what has to be unhealthy, undead ash.

"Nice, noob!" Stick-hobo-guy exclaims as he pops up at Bob's shoulder. He deflects Bob's arm when he spins around in surprise, forcing the stake to hit nothing but ashy air. "Careful there, big guy. Killing me would be murder."

"Some would call it justifiable homicide," Dirty-hobo corrects dryly. He drives his stake into Final Fugly's chest, then brushes the resulting dust from Brian's hair. "Not bad, man. I would suggest holy water to the face or a crucifix to the 'nads next time. Really makes them squirm."

"What the fuck?" Brian demands. He rolls his shoulders to dislodge Dirty-hobo's hands. Brian is practically vibrating in place, and he has his hands raised away from his body and slightly curled. Bob is suddenly reminded that Brian used to be a big brawler before he sobered up, stopped drinking and popping all the fucking time, and started tour managing fulltime.

Brian faces off against an unimpressed Dirty-hobo as Stick-hobo-guy helps Number 3 and Number 4 to their feet. The two of them are covered in bits of trash, smelling vaguely of bad Chinese. Bob winces in sympathy when he shifts his shoulder and feels how his shirt is stuck to his back from his own tumble in filth. Number 3 swats Stick-hobo-guy away and pulls his baseball cap further down his forehead. "Fuck off, Pete. We're fine. Filthy, but fine."

"Aw, Pattycake!" Pete gasps. It's a sound worthy of any virginal maiden caught swooning on a romance novel cover. He even clutches his hands to his chest, like he's been mortally wounded.

"Fuck off, Pete," Number 3 growls. He tugs on the bill of his cap. He's blushing and studiously not looking at Pete.

"Who the fuck are you people, and what the fuck just happened here?" Brian half-shouts. His hands have gone from slightly curled to full on fists, and he's vibrating with suppressed - rage? adrenaline? annoyance? Bob isn't sure; Brian can be hard to read at times. But he's definitely vibrating with a suppressed emotion to the edge of making sound.

"Whoa! Chill, dude!" Number 4 placates. He looks completely demented with his hands raised palms up and open, and he's smiling like he isn't covered in rotting trash in a dark alley after fighting off what might possibly have been creatures of immense, immense evil.

And Bob really, really needs another drink if he's thinking like this. The good shit, too, not that cheap piss water Brian was passing off earlier.

"You don't want to wake the neighbors," Number 4 continues. "We'll explain everything once we're, ya know, not walking bait anymore."

"We're not going anywhere until you start talking, asshole," Brian growls. He's narrowing his eyes like he's picking out potential soft targets on their bodies, and Bob really hopes he isn't going to have to explain a quadruple homicide tonight. His brain just can't handle that right now.

Pete opens his mouth, but snaps it shut when Dirty-hobo glares at him. Dirty-hobo turns back to Brian. "We're friends, promise. That's Pete, I'm Andy, the dude with the hat is Patrick, and the 'fro goes to Joe. As for what happened, you've seen horror movies before, right? Does Dracula ring any bells?"

"Vampires aren't real," Bob breaks in.

"And people don't explode when you stake them," Andy retorts. He even rolls his eyes for good measure. "Come on. We'll explain in detail once we're somewhere Johnny and Alfred can't follow."

"Who?" Brian asks. He's pinching the bridge of his nose now, so at least Bob knows he's thinking again. Thinking and not likely how everything is adding up, most likely.

"I think he means Boss and Squeaky," Bob says. Brian gives him an exasperated look, and Bob shrugs. He can't help it if he likes to differentiate shit so he doesn't confuse himself. Brian's probably still pissed that Bob will occasionally call Brian "Cupcake".

Joe tilts his head to the side. "You know, Johnny does sound awfully squeaky once you get him going."

"And 'Boss' is an apt enough description for Alfred," Patrick agrees. He claps Brian on the shoulder while Pete does the same for Bob, and they start leading them out of the alley.

"I'm pretty sure we're staying at the same motel," Pete tells them. "We'll make sure you get home before curfew, darlings."

Bob lets Brian do the attempted protesting. Brian is better at it, for one thing, and Bob isn't all that bothered by the plan. He has no idea what is going on, he's just been attacked by people who may or may not have actually been the vampires they so unfortunately resembled, and he is totally okay with being escorted to a set of rooms with locks – and a shower. Bob really, really wants his shower now – by the people who had just rescued him. Even if said people look and smell like the dirtiest hobos imaginable.

There is one moment where Bob thinks he may have to reconsider his position. A moment that comes when they stop at a battered van with an equally battered attached trailer right at the edge of the motel parking lot. Bob isn't exactly sure if it really is the motel parking lot at all or if said amount of concrete space actually belongs to the rundown gas station next door.

If Bob was going to park his vehicle where people would be less likely to bitch about it, he would have parked here, too. Doing numerous van tours had taught him the best way to park without being charged slash arrested. This spot is prime retail for those specifications; they're out of direct line of sight of the front desk of the motel and the cash registers at the gas station, and the street lamps are partially blocked by the branches of the huge ass fucking tree on the other side of the chain link fence. Bob seriously gives thought to the fear that he's about to be cut up and eaten at any moment. For all of ten seconds. Then he remembers that he's twice the size of any of them and could squish them all quite easily.

Of course, it turns out that when Pete said they were all staying at the same motel, he actually meant that, "Yeah. We're actually living out of our van for the moment – evil slayage isn't really the most profitable of careers – but we're still all camped out at the same place!"

"Shut up, Pete." Patrick climbs out of the back of the van. He's carrying a duffel and has a backpack slung over his shoulder. "What Pete means to say is we're commandeering your shower, because you owe us." He tosses the duffle at Pete's head.

"And you figure that just how?" Brian demands. He's slowly inching away from them and their van. Bob isn't sure if it's because Brian thinks they're about to be cut up and eaten, too, but Bob'd bet that Brian doesn't even notice what he's doing; Brian's been inching away from Bob the entire walk back, too. Brian doesn't do well with stink, especially it it's a stink that could have been avoided.

"We just saved your asses from becoming tonight's midnight snack, princess. Suck it up," Patrick snaps back.

Brian rolls his eyes as he turns away. "Fine, but if you clog up the drains, I'll kick all of your asses!" He warns, talking over his shoulder as he makes for the motel.

Bob shrugs when the four of them turn to look at him. "He will."

|-|

Between showers, arguments over what kind of takeout to order and ordering said takeout, it takes a couple of hours before they all sit down to talk about what happened. Bob and Brian have a double at the far end of the complex, well away from where the band is supposedly staying, and the fact that the door is doubly bolted down is the only thing that keeps Brian from demanding answers the moment they all piled inside.

That and the four of them and Bob really, really stank. Brian really doesn't do well with stink.

Bob and Brian have settled on one bed, while Pete and Joe have taken the other, and Patrick and Andy sit at the small table in the corner. Bob's currently ignoring both Pete and Joe, because the sight of anyone having a slurping contest with Thai noodles is the last thing he wants to see. Hearing it is bad enough, thank you.

Patrick pulls a book out of his backpack and tosses it onto the bed next to Brian. "Let's get this over with."

"'A Historie of Supernaturale Creaturs and Dæmons,'" Brian reads from the cover. "Okay. What the fuck?"

"Exactly what it says, man," Joe pipes up. He looks up from his takeout container for a moment, one long noodle hanging from the corner of his mouth. "It isn't the most comprehensive work out there or the most factual, but it's a pretty decent introduction." He finishes with a slurp.

Brian hands Bob the book without opening it. It's heavy, leather bound, smells like mildew, and, from the look of how the quality paper is starting to yellow along the edges, pretty old. The title was burned into the leather, and all the pictures Bob sees as he flips through the book are woodcut. There are a couple of marked spots – red and blue ink and pencil markings in a couple of different handwriting styles – and a page or four that have been torn out and repaired with clear packaging tape.

"Okay. You have a book that hasn't been treated very well," Bob says. He closes the book and puts it to the side. He leans back against the headboard and folds his hands over his stomach.

"How about you start with the facts, like who you are, who or what those...people were, and what the hell any of that has to do with us," Brian demands. He's sitting at the edge of the bed and leaning forward, one leg tucked under him and the other planted on the floor. His elbows are braced against his knees, and he's flipping his lighter between his hands.

Pete pulls himself away from his takeout long enough to say, "We're the assholes who just saved your lives, buddy. You could at least thank us."

"We've fed and showered you, buddy," Bob drawls. He adds his glare to Andy's and Patrick's, and Pete goes back to his food. Bob turns his glare on Andy and Patrick next. "Now would be the time to start answering Brian's questions. He hates having to ask shit more than once."

Andy rolls his eyes. "Right. Anyway. Like we've said, we're hunters. Of a sort. More the kind that goes after the things that go bump in the night and less so Bambi or Thumper." He shifts, mirroring Brian's position, only his hands are still and clasped in front of him. His eyes don't stray from their focus on Bob's and Brian's faces. "Vampires exist. Werewolves, demons, shapeshifters, zombies, every terrifying monster you ever feared was hiding under your bed is real, and a lot of them want to eat you for dinner."

"Some of them even live under your bed!" Joe adds helpfully. "Just for the added convenience."

Brian sighs, a harsh sound that is halfway to a growl, and rubs the hand not currently toying with his lighter over his face. Bob recognizes the look as Brian's manager face – the one where he can't believe his asshole charges managed to set something slash someone slash themselves on fire slash broke another instrument slash left a band member behind at a truck stop, and he's trying to figure out how to deal with it without defaulting to killing them and all witnesses and hiding the bodies in a mass grave slash the bottom of the closest body of water.

It is entirely possible that Bob's known Brian for far too long.

"Great. Awesome. So those were vampires. Judging by the stakes, fangs, and ash explosions?" Brian asks. "And you still haven't answered my first question."

Andy nods. "Yeah, those were vampires. Two different factions, actually." He motions at Patrick, who tugs on his hat – a different one than before – with a grumble.

"Usually in a town this size, you'll only find one large faction of vamps, with a central figure head – either an older vamp or one with enough charisma to keep the others toeing his or her line. Occasionally, you'll find a smaller group either looking to break into the large one's holdings or one that had broken off from the main group," Patrick explains. "That's what's odd about here. There are two large, mostly equal groups, both with older vamps in the lead.

"Alfred and Marco are, or in Marco's case, were, the sub-leaders of both groups. Marco was about seventy-five years dead, and Alfred is about one hundred and fifteen. At least, that's what we've managed to come up with in our research." Patrick shrugs, like the information possibly being faulty doesn't bother him that much.

"And that's old?" Bob asks. "For a vampire, I mean."

Andy nods. "Yeah, most vamps don't survive past twenty-five or thirty. And that's only if they manage not to kill themselves again within the first year."

"We can't figure out why both groups are here," Joe breaks in. "Considering Alfred's Master is somewhere between two hundred and fifty and four hundred years dead, a second nest of vamps, especially of similar size, is really..."

"It's fucking weird, is what it is," Pete interrupts. He's put his food aside and has started pacing the floor between the bed and the bathroom door. He reminds Bob of brawlers trying to contain their energy after a fight's been broken up prematurely. "And it means the death counts in this rinky-dink town have skyrocketed."

"And you lot are here to put a stop to it," Bob deadpans. If he hadn't seen what he'd seen in the alley, he'd be tossing the four of them out the door for being completely fucking mental. And he wonders where exactly they're all from, if they're calling Detroit a 'rinky-dink town'. Granted, they are somewhat on the outskirts, but. Still.

Pete slides to a stop in order to glare at him. "No. We're here for the fucking sideshow."

"Pete."

Pete whirls around to face Patrick. "Fuck you. We should be out there, finishing this shit!"

Patrick shakes his head. "You know that going out now would be complete fucking suicide." Pete makes a strangled noise of protest and Patrick rolls his eyes. "Seriously, Pete, you are not that stupid. We killed Marco."

Pete frowns, but obviously thinks about that for a minute. Then his face breaks out with a huge ass grin. Complete with a full visual of all his teeth. "Yeah. Yeah, Jacob can't be very happy about that."

"Probably not," Andy comments dryly. But he smiles when Pete bounces back to his spot on the bed.

"You've dealt with these people, sorry, vampires before?" Brian asks.

Andy nods. "I've run into Jacob a couple of times. This is the first time I've seen him this far north – dude isn't exactly the biggest fan of snow."

"We're technically only here to do recon, but we saw you," Patrick points at Bob, "pulling Marco's boys off of that shit bassist and..." Patrick shrugs.

"And?" Bob prompts when it doesn't look like Patrick is going to do more than just sit there, fingers tapping against the warped table top.

"We couldn't let a good deed go unrewarded," Pete pops in. Patrick rolls his eyes again but nods.

Brian sits up straight, his shoulders tensing. "You let us be the bait in the trap."

Patrick and Joe have the grace to look a little apologetic, but Andy and Pete just grin at Bob and Brian. Their grins only widen when Bob glares at them.

"Aw, relax, princess! We weren't going to let you die," Joe says. "We had everything under control."

"Right," Bob says. He lets a little bit of a growl enter his voice. "Which is why Al and Squeaky managed to escape, and Brian was almost eaten."

"Hey, for a bunch of guys who aren't Slayers, nine out of eleven ain't bad," Joe protests.

"And you said it yourself – almost. Brian was almost eaten," Pete finishes. "No one important died, therefore victory is ours."

Brian snorts. "You let the two important ones escape with our descriptions to hand out to every vampire in town, and you think that's a victory?"

Joe shrugs. "Any one you walk away from."

"Okay, okay!" Patrick breaks in before Brian can leap over Bob for Joe's – and/or Pete's – throat. "Yes, it sucks that Alfred and Johnny got away, and we'd apologize for using the two of you as bait, except for how it worked. We're all still alive, and that's awesome, but we didn't come here to talk about this."

"No, you came to use our shower and eat our food as a thank you for setting us up to be almost killed," Brian snaps. "If you think either of us are walking away from this now, you really are as stupid as you all look."

"You think we're going to let you fight?" Pete scoffs. "You don't know shit about shit."

"Well, scrawny, just how do you think you're going to stop us?" Bob demands.

Joe snaps his fingers, and there's a flash, an only mildly deafening boom, some sparks, and some smoke. All four of them are watching Bob and Brian, who both stare back, largely unaffected. There's a faint odor of sulfur in the air.

"Really? Really? Really now. I manage shit bands for a living," Brian sighs. "I've seen, heard, and smelt worse in a belching contest."

Bob points at Joe. "Also? Do that again? And you'll be smoking out of your ass for a year."

The four of them blink at Bob and Brian for a minute. Patrick even opens his mouth a few times, but nothing comes out.

Brian nods. "That's right, assholes. Now fill us in."

|-|

Two and a half days of arguing, phone calls, and extensive research later, they have a plan. Bob fully believes it is a stupid plan that is going to end with all of them dead, but he's prepared to deal with those consequences. Just. Anything to get him out of the small, cramped quarters, largely alone, with Pete Wentz.

Patrick had declared Pete confined to the room after he'd snuck out with clear intentions to track Alfred and Squeaky down right around sunrise that first night. Bob remembers thinking after that fight in the alley that he could take any of these four, but watching Andy read Pete the Riot Act after Joe had dragged him back, with Patrick standing a silent, fuming sentinel against the wall behind them, makes Bob reconsider his assumptions.

"You are a stupid, stupid son of a fucking bitch, Pete Wentz," Patrick growls once Andy is finished and even Joe has added his two cents via sad puppy eyes and drooping hair. "If you ever pull that shit again, I will kill you, find a vamp to bring you back, and then fucking stake you so I don't have to deal with the fucking body, are we clear?" Patrick had backed Pete into the corner of the room, looming over the taller man just by the force of his fury, and Pete had nodded desperately in agreement.

Bob's pretty fucking sure that Patrick could just run him over if he just set his mind to it. Not that Bob is all that raring to test his little theory. But spending the vast majority of the rest of those two days stuck in the motel room with Pete while the other four go off doing their research, because apparently Bob is the only one who is both large enough and collected enough to keep Pete in the room like Patrick ordered and to keep from killing Pete when all that collective time spent in a small room with nothing to do starts driving Pete – sometimes literally – up the walls, is just cruel and unusual punishment.

And Bob's fairly sure he hasn't done anything to warrant said cruelty. Even if he has been vocal about his disagreement with the plan.

"Christ, Bryar, you didn't bitch this much about that Scepters tour," Brian snaps. "What the fuck is the problem?"

Bob glares at him, doing his best to ignore the way Pete and Patrick are watching him. He just knows Pete is going to pout, an actually pout, the kind that turns Patrick into a fuming mass of overprotectiveness, and how the fuck is this his life again? "I don't know, Schechter, maybe that whole part of the plan where I'm supposed to hole up in a fucking coffin with Pete fucking Wentz for company?"

Bob sees Pete flinch out of the corner of his eye as Joe exhales, "Harsh, man." in a sharp rush of breath. Bob ignores them both.

"Not to mention that whole part where you four are supposed to deliver us to an entire nest of bloodsucking vampires?" Bob finishes.

"Not to mention," Brian repeats dryly. He smirks at Bob.

Bob glares at him. He runs a hand over his head, idly thinking that he needs to buzz his hair again. "No, Schechter. You are a dirty, dirty little man, and I do not appreciate it."

"Your type," Brian says.

Bob snorts. "Short, tattooed, and spazzy does not add up to 'my type.' Asshole." Brian just keeps watching him, and Bob finally throws his hands up in the air. He really, really needs to get away from these people, fucking shit, he's starting to pick up they're stupid fucking mannerisms. "Fine! But I maintain the right to say I told you so when this shit goes horribly, horribly fucking wrong."

"Duly noted, Pinky," Andy breaks in. "Can we get on with this now?"

Bob grumbles under his breathe, but he sits down – as far from Pete as he can – and listens to Andy and Brian go through the plan one last time.

|-|

Other than a few minor difficulties, the plan pretty much goes like, well. Planned.

This does not make Bob feel better.

"Christ, Bryar, you are such a fucking baby," Brian mutters. He's wrapping up half of Bob's left arm – from his shoulder to his elbow – where one of the bloodsucker's pet mutts had torn the skin wide open.

Bob glares. "No one said anything about having to fight off fucking dogs."

"Expect the unexpected, dude!" Joe exclaims. "Dogs are totally like the Spanish Inquisition, seriously. No one ever expects either, and they always, always should." He nods a couple of times, like each nod is needed to hammer his advice home. Joe, Bob suspects, is a tad-bit high. Bob figures being a little high is the reward for swallowing that awful smelling shit that Joe's taken after Andy had finished wrapping up his own battle wounds.

Of course, Bob has noticed that Joe spends a good deal of his time high. So that is neither here nor there.

Brian steps back from Bob, glaring. "Well, sweetheart, if you'd bothered to fucking duck, you wouldn't have had to worry about it, would you?" He turns away and puts the last of the bandages back into the first aid kit slash duffle bag.

Bob glares at Brian's back. "Right. How the fuck was I supposed to duck a fucking dog?" He rotates his arm gingerly. It fucking hurts: sharp jolts of pain straight up through the shoulder that then cascade down his spine. Bob knows he's damn lucky they aren't still on tour, because there's no way in hell he'd be able to do his job with one working arm and another that goes a tiny bit numb through the fingers whenever he moves it.

"I'm not sure, Bryar. Perhaps you could try ducking?" Brian suggests.

"Don't look now, Patrick, but I think Dad and Daddy are having a fight," Pete stage whispers. He isn't at all repentant when both Brian and Bob turn their glares on him.

Patrick pulls his hat further down his forehead. "It was their first fight, Pete. Shut up."

It had been their first fight if one looks at it a certain way. It is like every brawl or ragtag fisticuff they had ever ended up involved in had just been a taster course for this one. When Pete had said that they didn't know shit from shit, he hadn't been completely wrong.

Of course, not knowing his shit hadn't stopped Bob from pulling Pete out of the paths of two very angry bloodsuckers.

The plan had been simple: deliver Bob and Pete right under the vampires' radar, cause a diversion, and take out as many of the bloodsuckers as possible – aiming for the Masters and higher ranking peons – without dying themselves.

(Both Bob and Brian had been concerned about the connivance of having both nests together at once, and of their own volition to boot, but Andy had waved off their concerns with a simple, "This shit falls together every damn time. Vampires, like most evil bastards, are arrogant to the point of extreme stupidity. If you ever find yourselves nudging the fuckers into line, then you know you're in some deep shit."

"Meaning, even if we spent the next month picking them off, one by one, they'd still think they had the upper hand?" Brian had asked.

"Yep. And we'd still get the jump on them, too." Andy had shrugged, spinning a drumstick-cum-stake around his fingers. "Only, we don't have the month to waste, so we hit them now.")

What the plan hadn't called for was Joe being nabbed by some lone wolf looking to gain favor in the eyes of either or both Masters right after Bob and Pete's coffin had been passed off and right before the other four could sneak their way inside the warehouse turned bloodsucker meeting ground. Patrick, Brian and Andy had had to go in through the front door, as it were, instead of sneaking all quiet like through the back. Meaning they all missed the damn dogs.

Well, missed them right up until one of the bastard curs latched itself onto Bob's left arm.

"They didn't do too badly," Pete agrees. He's draped himself over Patrick's back, which should hinder Patrick in his packing, but Patrick just seems resigned to the fate. "We killed off the big bads, and no one died, so I call this one a win!"

"Any one you walk away from?" Brian asks drolly. Joe and Pete laugh, but Andy nods in all seriousness.

"What are your plans now?" He asks them. He has folded himself up on top of the dresser, his bags packed and lying on the floor under his feet.

"Head back to Chicago," Bob shrugs. Then winces when his wound makes very clear that he is an idiot for both the movement and for forgetting that he had almost lost that arm earlier that night. "Find another tour or maybe a sound gig in a club. Whatever."

"Tour?" Andy asks. Actually, he sounds less like he's asking and more like he's prodding them along. Bob narrows his eyes at him, but Andy just grins.

"Yeah, I tour manage, Bob does sound, and we both tech as needed," Brian explains as he sets the first aid duffle next to the others by the door. He shoves his hands in his pockets for wont of something else to do. Bob's pretty sure that they've talked professions before, but if everyone wants to rehash old conversations, he isn't going to stop them.

"Well, how about you skip going back to Chicago and jump right into going with us?" Pete asks. "We start a tour in Philly in three days, and we could use the extra hands."

"You can't afford me," Bob tells him. They really, really can't. "Let alone both of us."

Pete waves off his objection. "We can take it out in trade. You do your thing for our band, and we'll train you up on everything that you'll ever need to know about what goes bump in the night."

Bob and Brian look at each other. Bob knows he can afford to go bumming around for a while before his savings account starts to squeal – that's why Bob let Brian talk him into doing the Scepters tour for free – but he isn't exactly privy to the state of Brian's own finances.

"Also, we can pay you," Patrick sighs. "Just not as much as you're used too."

"And that'll only last as long as our relative obscurity," Pete interjects. He's grinning his big monkey grin, and Bob wants to slap him. Bob certainly shouldn't be contemplating spending any more time in cramped spaces with Wentz. Obviously Bob had taken one too many blows to the head, because he is contemplating it.

"Fall Out Boy is going to be the next big thing, just you wait and see!" Pete continues.

Brian frowns. "Fall Out Boy? You mean that punk-pop-rock fusion thing out of Chicago?"

Pete nods rapidly. It doesn't help the monkey image. "Totally all Joe's idea. Awesomeness."

Brian sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. Then he looks at Bob. "Can't be any worse than Scepters."

Bob snorts. "If it is, I expect cash and the good shit, Cupcake."

"Whatever, Bryar." Brian rolls his eyes. "You still aren't worth the good shit."

Pete lets out a loud whooping sound and launches himself from Patrick's side onto Brian. They fall to the floor, Brian cursing Pete's family back six generations. Pete just hollers, "Welcome to the insanity, motherfuckers! Where feedback and hangovers are the least of you problems."

Bob shakes his head, not moving an inch toward helping Brian off of the floor, even though Brian is all but begging for his help. Bob has a bad feeling about this, the same feeling from the bar, only magnified about ten thousand. "I don't care what wants to kill you, Wentz, feedback is always preventable."

|-|

It's just a nightmare. The same one with the bodies lying around him, the van running behind him, the sun hot above him, even the same feathers on the ground following him. Brian's still broken and twisted, and Bob recognizes a few more of the bodies lying further out – Andy and Joe crumpled next to that tree, Pete and Patrick on top of each other by that boulder, Matt's torso next to one tree while a few feet away is his head and limbs are by another.

Bob is holding a knife in one hand and a stake in the other. Both are clean, like he'd arrived too late to do anything. Bob glares up at the sun for a long moment before turning around and marching back to the van.

He still doesn't know the how or the why, but that isn't going to stop him. The apocalypse isn't going to happen on his watch.

It's just a nightmare.

|-|

Pete had said Fall Out Boy needed the extra hands, but apparently what he'd actually meant is Fall Out Boy is in serious need of support people with actual brains instead of the dumbasses currently following them around. Brian makes short work of releasing all three of the band's techs after he's introduced to them as the acting tour manager. Then he brings in a tech he and Bob have both worked with in the past to round out the crew.

Matt Cortez is everything Pete Wentz could be, if Pete would ever use an ounce of the self-control given to him, and if Pete wasn't as much of an attention whore as he obviously is. Bob really couldn't care less either way; he's just glad to have someone mildly sane to work with again. And it helps that Cortez is totally chill.

"Vampires exist? No shit. I guess I should have listened more to mi bisabuela, huh?" Matt says after Andy gives him the 'everything you ever feared was under your bed is' speech. Then he shrugs and wanders off to tune guitars or whatever it is that he actually gets up to when he isn't hanging out. Bob doesn't have a clue, but he isn't going to knock the guy for actually being able to find privacy in a lifestyle that doesn't particularly allow for it.

The first week or so of the tour is hectic, but that in and of itself isn't unusual. Tours are always hectic, from start to finish. In Bob's experience that is a fundamental truth that doesn't change no matter if it is the first week, third week or the last week of a tour. What changes is a person's perspective; just about anything can become routine if a person sticks to it long enough.

Strangely enough – or not strange enough, depending on how Bob looks at it – adding Patrick's and Andy's 'lessons' to the mix of drive, set up, soundcheck, show, take down, party, drive, rinse and repeat, doesn't really change much. Sure, Bob's stuck listening to either Patrick or Andy droning on and on about this myth about werewolves or that curse for cheating significant others or that one time Pete talked Patrick into wearing a bearsuit for a week as part of some hoax protection spell instead of the radio on the long drives between shows. But nothing is trying to eat him or his (most of the time anyway, and Bob still isn't sure that that little imp like thing that had latched onto Brian had actually planned on eating him – like digestion eating anyway), so Bob's fairly content.

Thankfully, Fall Out Boy isn't just a smokescreen excuse for the guys to travel around the country without too many awkward questions being asked. Unlike Scepters, this band manages to produce something that does more than just give off a passing resemblance to music. Bob finds himself tapping out a melody to the bassline during that first soundcheck, which makes him admit that the guys have a vague idea what they're doing; even if it isn't the type of music he'd pick up on his own.

Brian finds Bob smoking out by the trailer after soundcheck about two weeks in. He bums Bob's lighter to light his own cigarette, before leaning back against the graffiti covered trailer next to Bob, their arms just brushing. "These guys could be the real thing," Brian says on a smoky exhale.

Bob just nods. He's seen the way heads have been turning after the sets start, once Patrick opens his mouth with Pete, Andy, and Joe all hypnotic blurry whirlwinds around him. Brian's been fielding five or six more phone calls per day for interviews and radio spots. If the band doesn't do something incredibly stupid, Fall Out Boy is going to explode on the main scene within a year, two tops, if not drastically sooner.

Brian watches his next exhale disappear into the cold night sky. "I'd say they'd have to be luckier than they are talented to break the way the scene is playing out now, but..."

Anyone who can attack a warehouse full of vampires (and their fucking mutts) with two untested fighters (who only brought the odds from about six-to-one to about four-to-one), and come out not only alive, but victorious? With everyone they went in there with?

"Yeah, they already have all the luck they need," Bob agrees.

They watch in silence as the band falls out of the back door into the parking lot. Literally falls out. Joe has been experimenting with a couple of spells Andy had found in some old dead guy's journal, but so far all he's really managed to do is produce some truly spectacular bruises (on both himself and his bandmates; Bob, Brian and Matt have managed to keep their distances, mostly by hiding in the other van) and raise Brian's blood pressure through the roof.

"Then again, I may just kill them myself first," Brian mutters after he checks the rest of the lot to make sure no one else saw that. Other than Bob, Brian and the band, there's only Matt leaning against the other van talking on his cell. Matt's only reaction is to hold up a hastily made sign with the number eight point five scribbled on it.

Matt Cortez is one chill fucker.

"Just do it where we can blame the bloodsuckers," Bob tells Brian.

Brian glares at Bob before he stomps over to the band. Bob is always a little surprised at how Brian's voice goes somewhat breathlessly squeaky at the end of his words whenever he's really mad. It's sort of adorable, in a deadly, freakish leprechaun sort of way.

Bob stubs his cigarette out against the side of the trailer. Brian is yelling, Pete and Joe are laughing at him while Patrick and Andy at least have the good graces to try to look apologetic (though they are totally laughing, too), and Matt is heading over to Bob, his cell tucked away into a spare pocket.

Yep, anything can become routine if a person just waits long enough.

|-|

"So. What's up with you and Brian?" Patrick asks a couple of weeks later. They are in the lull of time just after set up and right before soundcheck and Bob is wasting time fiddling with the soundboard. Something is wonky with the club's setup, and nothing sounds like Bob wants it to. He can't fix it without re-wiring the entire place, but that isn't stopping him from trying to find a different setup that will, if not make the guys sound awesome, at least make them sound less like claws on a chalkboard.

Bob doesn't bother looking up from his board. He's been waiting for that question for almost two months, though he'd expected Andy or Pete to ask it. But both of them are off with Brian talking to a couple of local DJs, and Joe has Matt cornered in the dressing room. Something about a bong, duct tape, and Cookie Crisp; Bob really doesn't want to know. Which left Patrick to finally pop the question.

"Nothing," Bob tells him. It's the truth, too. Maybe something could have happened back when they first met, but now they're both too firmly set in their friendship. That, and Bob really isn't all that interested in short, temperamental, highly tattooed men.

Patrick is silent for a couple of minutes. In that time he manages to fiddle with his hat, his guitar, Bob's water bottle, his water bottle, a random scrap of paper he finds under the soundboard and his hat again. Then he sighs, shuffling back and forth on his feet. "Pete is taking bets on the two of you already being married."

Bob snorts. Pete would. "Really."

"Joe thinks you two are getting the papers ready to adopt adorable African orphans."

Bob rubs a hand over his face. Gingerly because his jaw is still sore from where the water demon-thing had hit him with its tail a couple of days before. "You really don't need two guitarists, do you?"

"You can't kill Joe. Or Pete," Patrick tells him. Patrick is scowling, and Bob sort of wishes he had the heart to tell him that scowling makes him look like a pouting puppy. Then Bob remembers that making Patrick look ridiculous is fucking funny and now one of the few joys of Bob's life. And Bob is not a killjoy.

"And you'll stop me how?" Bob asks. Because the only thing funnier than Patrick scowling is making Patrick grumble.

"So, anyway," Patrick says after muttering to himself for a minute. "You and Brian."

Bob sighs. "We're friends. You four are like fucking gossipy little old ladies. Fuck off." He looks up from the board just long enough to glare at Patrick. "Or you'll sound like shit tonight."

"Right," Patrick snorts, but he moves away from the amp he was leaning against. "Because you'd actually fuck with your reputation like that," he calls over his shoulder as he walks away.

Bob scowls at the board. He's half tempted to do it anyway, but the little fucker is right. Asshole.

|-|

Patrick and Andy have been taking care of Brian and Bob's 'formal' education on all things meant for bedtime stories and box office hits. No one, not even Pete, trusts Pete to have anything to do with imparting information that might one day save or end someone else's life. Patrick still hasn't forgiven Pete for the whole bearsuit stunt, and it had been two years since that little incident. Besides, in turns out that Pete's more of a hands on type instructor.

And Joe. Well. Joe's area of expertise didn't really translate well to long stretches of boring highway. Especially when those long stretches of boring highway translate more to Joe smoking up and giggling by the amps in the back of the vans than anything else.

About two hours after they all left Detroit, Joe pretty much just hands over copies of his recipes and a handy-dandy notebook filled with notes and picture references (Seriously. Joe titled it, "My Handy-Dandy Notebook Filled with Notes and Picture References For Everything You Ever Needed, Might Need, Do Need to Not Die of Magical-ish Causes."), and a first aid kit filled with everything they might need. The kit is a duplicate of the duffle that had bandaged them all up after the fight in Detroit, except for the masking tape and blue ink scrawl that labeled everything nicely, if not neatly.

Bob rolls his eyes when he sees the labels, but at least neither of them are going to accidentally kill themselves grabbing the wrong herb or whatever for a potion or a spell or whatever they might need the shit for.

Two months spent tangling with water demons, werewolves, vampires, one seriously pissed off ghost, and other supernatural odds and ends meant Bob and Brian spent a good deal of time pulling shit out of their duffel. Bob only fucks up once, pulling crushed topaz instead of ground beetle, but they are lucky enough to blame Brian's blue hair on a successful Wentz-Trohman prank victory.

If Bob is starting to get the impression that Pete and Andy are training him and Brian up to work on their own or something, he's willing to look the other way for now. When Brian starts to foist more and more of the tour manager's responsibilities onto Matt, like he's come to suspect something himself, Bob looks so far in the other direction the image is burned onto the back of his eyelids.

|-|

"It's a peacock," Brian says. He has his hands up at chest level like there's someone holding a gun on him. The bird in question is staring straight at Brian, completely still, its brightly colored feathers fanned out to about half-mast, like it had frozen the moment it had spotted Brian.

Which is pretty much what happened. One minute the six of them are walking down the street, searching for an appearing slash disappearing park that's been causing some weird ass rumors, a park that just isn't doing it's appearing slash disappearing thing, the next they're in a clearing surrounded dense grove of birch and fir trees, and there's a peacock on a stump in the middle of said clearing. Bob's fairly certain they aren't going to make it back to the venue in time for the first opener; none of the rumors had mentioned that everything in the appearing slash disappearing park that was done in gray tone except for the fucking bird.

"Schechter, how many times do we have to go over this? There's an entire class of demons that do their evil deeds by shapeshifting. Some do it to lure people in, others to frighten or relax, and certain ones become a person's greatest wish or their greatest fear," Andy explains. He exhales slowly, obviously counting to ten to calm down. Although Bob would bet his reaction is more toward the sudden appearance of the magic location than it is about Brian stating the obvious. "Things aren't always what they seem, and when you run into a pretty bird in a woodlot where there shouldn't be a pretty bird in a woodlot, that means you have a demon."

"We taking bets on which sub-set this fucker belongs to?" Pete asks. He twists his wrist and a small, but sharp dagger with silver etching falls into his hand. "Or are we just going to kill it and move on with our lives?"

He shifts on his feet, like he's about to throw the blade (Bob would never have expected that Pete Wentz could have the concentration needed to be truly effective with, well, any weapon, but Pete is especially effectively with his enchanted throwing knives), but Patrick puts a hand to Pete's arm before he can bring it up.

"How about we figure out what exactly is going on," Patrick says. "Then we can go charging in and all that."

"Why wait for tomorrow when we could have fun now?" Joe huffs from where he's standing behind Andy. He rolls his wrists and, as Bob watches, he sketches a faint symbol in the air. The symbol doesn't flash, not really, not the bright colored, one-two pop like Bob's seen happen the thousands of other times Joe's made the same sketch. No, what it does is sort of flicker in a smoky gray color before fading like Bob exhaling smoke into the cold morning air.

Joe frowns and tries a different symbol, but the same thing happens, only this time the tone is even softer, and the after-shadow fades almost immediately. "So. I'm betting on a demonic shapeshifter sub-set that dampens magic in an obvious magically induced field. Just a guess, though. Anyone else?"

Brian shifts his weight to the right, and the peacock mirrors his movement. Brian tenses like he's going to move again, and Bob puts his hand up to Brian's back, not touching because the fucking bird demon thing puffs up some more at the movement. Bob freezes a bit himself, but he's close enough that Brian has to be able to feel the heat coming off of Bob's hand.

"Don't move, Schechter. Looks like your new boyfriend doesn't like all this company," Bob mutters. Brian snorts but stills.

"Color me surprised," he snaps, and Bob can hear the distinct 'I will kill you, Bryar' in his voice. "Any other advice? Perhaps something just a sight more useful?"

Patrick hums a little, totally under his breath. It's one of his nervous tics, something he does when he's thinking hard and fast, and Bob hopes he comes up with a plan faster than he had with that ghost in Seattle. That whole eureka moment doesn't do anyone any good if it happens after the bad guy has already been put down.

"Hello? Any ideas? Anyone?" Brian asks. His voice sort of squeaks at the end. Bob would totally lay into him for that, but. Okay. When your average sized bird, which might possibly be a demon, starts to get bigger, just a little bit, like so subtle a growth that Bob isn't even sure it was actually happening until he blinks and the bird is a quarter of its size larger, then yeah. Anyone's voice would go a bit squeaky.

Also, definitely a demon. No possibly about it. Not when the things eyes start glowing red. Brian takes a step backwards when the eyes flash before settling into a deep ruby color that seems to give off a lot of heat despite the inherent coldness of the glare. He only stops because he runs into the hand Bob still has up.

"Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?" Joe mocks. "Motherfucker."

When Bob looks over to glare at him, he sees that Joe is making quick work of the shit in his pockets, littering the ground with little papers and wrappers, a couple of lighters, a stick of chapstick, a broken pick, and some lint. Nothing to really help, and with magic tapped out, that makes Joe little more than bait if it comes to a fight. From the look on Joe's face, he has come to that conclusion as well.

"Shut up, Troh," Andy sighs. He pulls a knife from next to its twin at the small of his back and quickly passes it behind him to Joe. Joe might not be as adept at knife play as Pete, but he is still better at it than Brian is.

"How about everyone shut up?" Patrick snaps. He steps in front of Pete with his hands up in front of him like Brian. The peacock doesn't look away from Brian, but it does shift its weight, turning its body so it is equally facing both Brian and Patrick.

"I realize this may be beyond the scope of your flight or fight reflexes, guys, but have any of you stopped and thought about asking yonder demon-peacock what's going on?" He continues. He takes another step forward, shrugging Pete's hand off of his shoulder, and smiles at said demon-peacock.

The bird still doesn't look away from Brian, but its feathers settle a little. Just enough to showcase the fact that it definitely is at least part demon, if the feathers that aren't feathers mean anything.

"Are those tentacles?" Pete asks. He sounds halfway between confused and awed. He stops mid-grab in his attempt for Patrick in his shock.

The bird ruffles its feathers again. When they resettle, the tentacles are even more obvious. "Well, you are obviously the genius of this group," it says, beak open only enough to let the sound pass.

The voice that emanates from the bird's open beak is deep and gravelly, almost the exact opposite of what Bob would have thought it'd sound like, if Bob had actually thought about the demon being able to talk, which Bob obviously hadn't. None of the other demons they've come across (a larger number than Bob would have expected given the time frame, which is probably why Bob doesn't generally expect things) had talked – most of those things had barely been able to reproduce vowel sounds. And this one manages to both surpass vague vowel sounds and to make sense at the same time.

Bob snorts. "Obviously." When Pete turns and glares at him, Bob shrugs. "Evil or not, tentacles, feathers, and all, it nailed you perfectly."

"Bob!" Joe and Patrick exclaim. Even Andy turns to glare at Bob.

Bob shrugs again. He's just being honest. It isn't like they don't all know how Bob feels about Pete.

"Bryar, how about you leave your 'Thousand and One Reasons to Despise All That Pete Wentz Happens to Be and Stand For' for sometime when I don't have a demon-peacock, complete with glowy red eyes and tentacle feathers, trying to stare me down?" Brian snaps. His elbow comes back and knocks Bob's hand away from his back.

Bob steps back quickly, putting himself out of Brian's range, and it's like the world snaps back into focus. Colors are sharper, he can smell the familiar scent of a city's under layer beneath the tangy scent of natural growth and forest rot, and he can faintly hear cars and urban life just beyond the persistent hum of birds and bugs. Bob glares at the bird, and if a beak could smirk, this one would have.

"Aw, the lovers are having a spat. Should we wait for them to clear that up before we continue?" the peacock mocks. Bob's not sure how it does it, but it actually leers at Brian, and Bob's hands curl into fists. He has a knife in his pocket, at the small of his back, in his boot, but slicing and dicing the bird holds no interest for him.

Besides, his grandmother always said it was important that meat be tenderized first before it was cut it up and cooked.

"Bryar, back off. It's just trying to aggravate you," Patrick says.

"It's doing a damn good job of it," Bob growls. But he stays where he is, promising the bird a painful death with his eyes.

The peacock open its beak again, no doubt to say something witty and scathing that would have Bob launching himself across the open space between them to beat the shit out of the fucking thing with his fists, but Patrick had evidently had enough, shouting "Enough!" loud enough to completely silence the din around them.

The unexpected shout even forces the demon to break its gaze with Brian as everyone, aside from Brian, jerks their heads around to stare at Patrick. Who has his arms crossed over his chest as he glares, mouth set in a deep scowl.

"This is how we're going to handle this. No, Pete, shut the fuck up and listen to me." Patrick levels his glare on Pete, who shrinks back a bit at the force of it, automatically smiling sheepishly in an attempt to deflect some of Patrick's ire from himself. "Aside from the disappearing reappearing country 'scape, fancy feathers over there hasn't directly caused any trouble. No deaths, no injuries, nothing but a couple of freaked kids and a grandma who lost her extra pot roast.

"We" and Patrick circles his finger around to indicate all of them, even the peacock. "We are going to be civil for at least ten minutes."

Pete nods. "Civil. Can do."

Patrick reaches over and pokes Pete in the chest hard enough to push him back a couple of inches. "Do not even think about acting civil with the intent of causing trouble after the time limit, Wentz. I will fuck you up. Clear?"

Pete gulps. "Crystal."

Patrick turns on the peacock. "Now you are going to start talking. About pertinent shit – not just whatever comes into your pea-sized brain."

The bird cocks its head to the side. "You are stunningly observant."

Joe laughs. He has taken Patrick's implemented ceasefire to heart, draping an arm over one of Andy's shoulders, and he leans in toward the bird like he's about to share the secrets of the world with him. "Dude, he has to deal with us, like, all the time. Only an idiot doesn't pick up on the little stupid things, and see? Patrick isn't an idiot."

The bird cackles. "Joseph Mark Trohman, I am well aware of the attributes of your Patrick Martin Stump."

Andy rolls his eyes. "Oh, look. A demon who thinks he's all knowing. Wow."

Bob stifles a snicker, but Joe and Pete don't even bother. Patrick glares at all three of them. The bird looks amused and Brian...

Brian is holding his nose between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and his other hand his on his hip. He isn't saying anything, but Bob knows it is only a matter of time before he starts muttering about killing them all and leaving the bodies to rot in the sun.

"I vote we dust this fucker," Andy continues. "His continued existence irks me."

"Andy..." Patrick starts.

"No, Patrick."

The bird sighs, interrupting Andy and Patrick before they could go for each other's throats. "Enough, children. My name is. Well. You can't actually pronounce my real name for you are silly humans with such silly limitations because of your silly vocal chords, but you may call me Kilky. I am here to impart such portions of eternal wisdom upon you as my masters, the gods, insist."

"Oh, Christ. It's another fucking cobra," Pete groans. He turns and hides his face in Patrick's shoulder. Patrick awkwardly pats his shoulder.

"I thought Gabe was high when all that went down," Joe points out.

Pete shrugs. "He was, but then again, it's Gabe. When isn't he high?" His voice is muffled by Patrick's t-shirt.

"Ah. You have heard of Starship, then?" The bird – Kilky asks. It looks vaguely impressed.

Silence falls over the group. Gabe, a friend of Pete's from Jersey, had sent Pete a series of texts and emails starting a few weeks before, all dealing with a cobra starship something or other that had told Gabe how to save the world. Or something to that effect. Gabe is possibly one of the weirdest people Bob has ever met, and he says this after spending months leaving with Pete. Bob had laughed it off, but Pete and Joe had spent a lot of time researching into animal guides and shit. Bob isn't sure how to handle the fact that apparently Gabe wasn't just talking out of his ass.

"Starship?" Patrick asks after a couple seconds. His hand is hovering above Pete's shoulder, mid-pat. "A cobra named Starship?"

"Gabe wasn't making that up?" Joe asks. He spits his question out so fast it almost runs completely overtop of Patrick's.

Kilky nods. "Yes. Cobra Starship is the name our masters gave her."

"My fucking life," Brian says. He mutters a couple of other things under his breath – Bob catches something involving anatomically incorrect sexual acts with walruses before he stops listening – then Brain straightens up into what Bob calls his 'manager' mode. "All right, Kilky or who – what – ever you are. We don't particularly give a shit about your masters or whatever. What we do care about is how you're starting to freak a whole shitload of people out."

"As your Patrick Martin Stump stated, I have done nothing to harm anyone," Kilky interrupts. He sounds mortally offended that Brian would even accuse him of doing anything of the sort.

Brian scoffs. "You yourself may not have harmed anyone, but we've traced four gang fights, two domestic abuse claims, a minor riot, and a ruined dinner party to your little snatch, grab, and release party here."

"Minor riot?" Joe asks.

"The thing at Club 556 last week that Matt told us about," Bob tells him. For some reason, Matt knows everything about everything about every place they roll into. It saves them research time, because Matt's shit is never off, which Bob finds off putting, but. Whatever. Time saved usually means extra time to sleep.

Joe makes an "Oh!" face in understanding, and he nods.

Kilky ruffles its feathers and shifts on its feet. "I had nothing to do with any of that."

"Four people ended up in the hospital! One is a five year old little girl who was shot on the way home from fucking school!" By the time Brian reaches the end of his sentence, his hands are balled into fists. Bob's fairly sure that if Brian was physically capable of growling, he'd would be. "Don't you fucking dare trying to push that blame off, you lousy excuse for a fucking neon color wheel. I'll let Bob tear you to shreds before we barbeque your freaky ass."

"I've heard that peacock is supposed to be pretty good," Joe pipes in. "We know calamari is."

"Delicacies, even," Andy adds. He brandishes the smallest of his three blades – the slim tiny one that he uses to trip locks and Pete steals to skin shit – letting the light catch on the sharp edges.

"Andrew John Hurley, you're supposed to be a vegan!" Kilky exclaims. It looks less demonic now that it has started talking, and Bob almost laughs at the way its voice goes squeaky at the end of its words when especially upset – just like Brian.

Andy shrugs. "I'm certain demonic flesh doesn't count. And even if it does, I'm willing to make an exception."

Kilky actually squawks when Andy smiles at it. Then it shakes its head, visibly pulling itself together. "Right. I apologize for the plight of the little girl. It was never my intention for anyone to be hurt. I had simply needed to gain your attention."

"You couldn't have just called?" Bob asks. "Or popped in? All of this," he waves his hand around to indicate the forest grove and the city it is masking, "isn't the simplest of operations."

"There are rules to these things, you realize," Kilky snaps, glaring. His eyes are starting to spark a dark vibrant shade of ruby.

Bob shrugs, returning Kilky's glare with an extra pinch of menace. "Sorry, but I left my 'How To Meet Up with Demons' instruction manual back in Chicago. Enlighten me."

Pete lets out a sharp laugh. He isn't hiding in Patrick's shoulder anymore, but he is trying to sneak his arm around Patrick's waist. Trying being the operative word, because Patrick keeps swatting his hand away irritably. "What our bird Kilky here means, Bryar, is that it couldn't just show up. That's what Starship did to Gabe."

"Right," Bob says. He draws out the word like he's just coming to a conclusion that has eluded him for years. "The peacock thing means it's a showoff."

Kilky sulks. It flat out sulks, losing its glare, hunching in on itself, staring angrily down at the ground. If it had lips, the bottom one would be stuck out in a pout. It totally looks like a five year old caught leaving the back door open for the cat to escape, complete with the scuffing foot.

"All right. Enough," Patrick interrupts. "How about you tell us what you're supposed to tell us, Kilky, and you can stop 'unintentionally' causing riots and shit."

Kilky sighs. "My masters believe you may be the key to saving the world as we know it from the prophecy of..."

"We don't care about that part," Pete interrupts.

"Pete!" Patrick says. He stares at Pete in something that looks like shock, but he can't actually be. Patrick just isn't shocked by Pete anymore, especially not after that whole thing with the furries; Bob refuses to believe otherwise. But whatever it is, it gives Pete the split second he needed to get his arm firmly around Patrick's waist. Patrick tries to push him away, but gives up after a couple of seconds; Pete is like a snuggly octopus.

"What? There are, like, twenty new doomsday prophecies a day, dude. It's going to tell us the vital information, and we can do the research shit later."

"Right," Kilky coughs. "You are hereby charged by my masters, the gods, with saving the grandnephew of a girl – the girl – the man who will watch and need watching."

Joe groans. "Why can't the charges ever be straight forward? Like name, rank, and serial number?"

"Because, Joseph Mark Trohman, a prophecy must be interpretable so that one has to strive to solve it. You just can't be handed the answers to life," Kilky snaps. "And I wasn't finished."

"Right, sorry," Joe apologies. He waves his hand, the one holding Andy's knife, idly through the air. "Please continue."

Kilky puffs himself up, even as he eyes Joe nervously. "He who will be watcher and watched travels with three who are not themselves and an fourth that has died but still lives." He stops and they all wait for him to continue.

"Again, not helpful," Joe complains when it is obvious Kilky has finished.

Kilky snorts. "As I have already said saving the world is not an easy task."

"Right. We get that," Joe tells it. "But clear and concise instructions do not make accomplishing the tasks easy, you know."

"Perhaps," Kilky admits. "However, it is much more fun to watch you humans scramble about trying to keep yourselves afloat." It smirks one last time before it and the forested grove disappear, leaving them standing in the dark alley they had left behind a short time before. An hour, according to Bob's watch.

"I will be in touch," Kilky's disembodied voice tells them. There is a loud 'POP!' following this announcement, then a distinct emptiness that Bob thinks means Kilky has actually left them alone, and isn't hovering around them watching them, invisible.

Brain shakes his head before he starts herding them out of the alley. According to his watch, they have just enough time that, if they hurry, they'll make it back to the club before the first opener even glances at the stage.

Andy slides up to Bob as they start down the street. "I'm thinking rotisserie. You in?" He reaches up and pulls a small blue feather out of Bob's hair.

Bob scowls as he takes and crushes the feather in one hand. "I'll even supply the fucking rope."

|-|

"I hate prophecies," Patrick mutters. "Especially the vague ones."

They're back in the vans and on their way to the next show. They have a couple of extra days before then, which they had planned on using to track down slash eliminate Kilky and his reappearing disappearing forest, but Andy had been fairly adamant that they leave town.

"It isn't like we are going to find it or the grove again, at least not until it wants to be found," he had explained. "Besides, I know a couple of people who might be able to shed some light on this, and they only talk to in house visitors."

Which left Bob and Brian in one van with Patrick driving and Pete in the passenger seat, and Joe, Andy and Matt in the other. Matt is driving the other van, while Andy reads through the stack of books that he didn't leave for Bob, Brian, and Pete and looks for references to prophecies that even vaguely allude to what Kilky had told them. So far neither Bob nor Brian is having any luck, and Pete is more interested in finding ways to annoy Patrick that won't accidentally result in all of them dying in a fiery ball of flames.

At least, that's what Bob thinks Pete is doing. If that turns out to be Pete's way of teaching Patrick how do drive (which Patrick obviously already knows how to do, otherwise Brian would never have let him behind the wheel), Bob isn't going to let either of them drive for the rest of the fucking tour.

A bright light flashes from the other van, which just so happens to be in front of theirs, and blinds Patrick, who swerves into the other lane before straightening the van out. He curses Joe and promises to do terrible, terrible things to him and his hair. Bob's just happy he double checked the trailer hitch before they took off.

Joe obviously isn't helping with the research. Instead he's probably trying out a long list of spells that are safe-ish to cast in a moving vehicle just to make sure that he can. Not being able to cast a single spell in the grove really freaked Joe out; he hadn't done a single twirl during the entire show.

"Christ, Stump! Watch what you're fucking doing!" Brian snaps. He pushes a guitar case off of him – Bob isn't sure whose it is, which means it's probably another of the ones that Patrick seems to pick up like a white shirt picks up dirt – and struggles back into the seat.

Bob gives him a hand up after he releases his own death grip on the seat. Bob looks pointedly at the seatbelt and Brian glares at him, but he puts it on.

"Fuck off, Schechter," Patrick returns. He swats at Pete's hand, connecting with a loud smack. "Stay on your own fucking side of the van, Pete, I am not fucking kidding."

There's another flash from the other van, this time a dark purple that is followed by blue smoke leaking out of the windows. Bob shakes his head as he watches the smoke trail past the windows, barely visible in the light from the blurring streetlights. "Andy can't be happy about that."

Patrick snorts. He has an iron grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles so far past white they're turning red again.

Neither Bob nor Brian is sure about what is making Patrick so short tempered now. He'd been fine on the walk back to the club, and he dealt with the crowd of fans that was bigger at this show then it was at the show before and the show before that like a pro. He'd shot the shit with the in-house crew before the show, put on the best show Bob had yet seen from him, and he'd helped break down their set without complaint. In fact, Patrick had been the calmest out of any of them – aside from Matt, who has to be the chillest motherfucker Bob has ever come across – right up until they turned onto the freeway.

Now that Bob is actually thinking about it, he isn't so sure that letting Patrick drive was the best plan ever. In fact, given the way Patrick is speeding up to pull even with the other van, and giving an unimpressed Matt and an annoyed Andy the finger over Pete's head, Bob's positive putting Patrick behind the wheel was the worst plan in the history of bad plans.

Well, Bob might not be including the coffin delivery plan in that.

"Hey, Patrick. Truck stop in two miles," Bob points out as they pass the sign, the other van trailing behind them.

Patrick glares at him in the rearview. "Yeah. Your point?"

"Maybe we should make sure that Joe hasn't killed himself?" Bob shrugs. "And we don't need to marathon tonight; Andy's friends can't meet us until after two tomorrow," he continues when Patrick just keeps glaring.

Bob watches Patrick's nose flare for a couple of seconds before he nods jerkily. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

He doesn't bother to signal when they come to the exit. He just cuts across the lane closest, gives the finger to the minivan that honks in protest, and takes the exit at about twenty miles over the suggested speed limit. He screeches into a couple of empty parking spaces on the far end of the lot, turns off the van, and gets out, stomping off toward the buildings at the other end of the lot before the key chains stopped banging against the ignition console.

It takes the rest of them a few minutes to make sure that everything is still where it is supposed to be, and by then Patrick has already disappeared from view. Pete sighs as he goes to climb out of the van.

"I'll go after him; it might take awhile." Then he jumps out of the van and starts toward the main building, which looks like one large conglomerate between a small time pizza joint, public bathrooms, and a twenty-four hour diner.

Bob and Brian look at each other before shrugging. Then they start extricating themselves from the avalanche of books, bags, and random instruments that had fallen on them during Hurricane Patrick.

The other van pulls up beside them just as Brian is climbing out of the van. Brian pauses about halfway out so that they can park without him getting in the way, and Bob finds himself aborting his move from the seat with Brian's ass firmly in his face.

"What the fuck, Schechter?" Bob grumbles. He pushes at Brian to move, and Brian does, but only after he shakes his ass a little and says, "What, you don't like the view, Bryar? I'm offended."

Bob throws a balled up pair of socks that had fallen out of one of the duffels at Brian's head. "Bite me."

Andy jumps out of the other van before Brian can answer. He's a little blue around the edges and he sort of shimmers. "Patrick freaking out?" he asks like he already knows the answer.

"Yeah. Pete went after him," Brian answers. He picks up the socks and tosses them back into the van.

"This happen often?" Bob asks after he climbs out of the van like he doesn't already know the answer to that. He and Brian have been traveling with them for five months at this point. Patrick has flipped out a few times, but it was never anything like the repress then explode today. Usually it involved someone (Pete) annoying Patrick until he started shouting, with a face red enough to beat out any county fair first place tomato, and attempting to strangle said someone (Pete). It is entirely possible that Patrick has anger management issues.

"Not really," Andy shrugs. He opens the side door to the van, letting out a mass of blue smoke. Once the smoke clears a little, Joe is visible sprawled out spread eagle over the futon mattress that had replaced the actual seats. He's snoring, loudly. "Last time this happened was when we found a prophecy that said Pete was going to have to die to save the world."

"Ah," Brian says, and Bob nods in agreement. They don't bother to ask anymore about it. Neither of them are quite sure what is actually going on between Patrick and Pete – they are definitely something more than friends, and possibly less than lovers, at least for the moment – and neither of them wants to be the one to ask. They know that would just open up the playing field for more questions about their own relationship, and Bob feels that having that conversation once already is once too much.

Matt walks around the van to join them. He is blue around the edges as well, but on him it looks sort of like shimmering scales a centimeter or so off of his body. "That was fun. What now?"

Andy shrugs. "We wait."

"And Patrick doesn't drive," Bob puts in. He doesn't care if it makes him sound like a pussy. Patrick was driving like a psycho, and Bob has no intention of ending his life as a grease smear on the pavement of some backwoods highway that hasn't been paved in the last decade.

Brian reaches into the van and pulls out the keys. Then he hands them to Bob. "You want to protest, then you drive."

"Like you didn't end up on your ass, Schechter," Bob points out. He takes the keys anyway. It isn't like he's going to be doing much sleeping anyway.

"Whatever," Brian returns. "So. Research?"

"Research," Andy agrees. He reaches over and punches Joe in the arm.

Joe startles awake halfway through a snore and a "No, Ma. The dragon burns are all Pete's fault, I swear!" Then he shakes his head and sits up. "What, man?"

"Stop hogging the futon. We've got work to do," Andy says, pushing him over and climbing in beside him. "Also, we need some light."

Joe rolls his eyes but starts digging around the duffle he calls his 'magical bag of tricks.' "I know you know how to do this shit, Hurley. I remember teaching you."

Andy shrugs. "You always get pissy when I do it, so shut up and make with the light already."

Joe takes out a few things out of the duffle, and mixes them together in a way that Bob still hasn't figured out how to do without destroying whatever it is that he's wearing at the time – Brian is a whole shitload better at all that magic shit than Bob is. Joe mutters something under his breath, and then there are two small white globes floating in front of him. They sort of look like the light bulbs Bob's mom used in their bathroom vanity, and if a person wants, they give off more light than most of the spotlights Bob's ever worked with on stage.

Pete calls them 'fairy lights,' to which Joe always rolls his eyes and snaps, "They're not fairy lights, dude! Fairy lights take a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of patience that you'll never have to make. These are the Joe Specials." That conversation usually ends with the two of them wrestling until someone bites someone else, and Andy lecturing on unsafe hygiene practices while bandaging them up.

"Here you go, Hurley. Two Joe Specials, free of charge," Joe says as he pushes one over to Andy and Matt, who are both curling up with large thick tomes in a language that Bob is only just starting to recognize as a demonic language not from Earth (and that was a surprise when they found out that Matt could read several different demonic languages. When Andy had questioned him about it, Matt had just shrugged and said something about his bisabuela making him and his siblings learn it when they were kids. He wouldn't say anything else about it, but Andy still pressed him into service researching).

Joe pushes the other light over to Bob and Brian, who had shoved shit around until they can sit in their own van comfortably. Bob isn't going to crowd into the other one, not with three dudes who smell like they do, especially when there's room for him to stretch out – not really comfortably, but more so than being crammed into a small space with four other dudes – with only one other dude.

Joe then curls back up on his side, back to Andy and Matt. "Have fun, dudes."

Andy frowns. Then he throws an empty soda bottle at Joe's head. At Joe's protest, he says, "I don't fucking think so, Trohman. You can either help with the research or go see what's up with Pete and Patrick. You can sleep when we're driving."

Joe grumbles, but he sits back up and grabs one of the books.

|-|

They've gone through two tomes a piece without much success by the time Pete and Patrick come back a couple of hours later bearing a couple of extra large pizzas like a peace offering. Pete is smiling his widest monkey-boy grin, and he has his arm firmly wrapped around Patrick's waist. Patrick is flushed, and his hat is askew on his head. He doesn't look up from the ground after Andy looks pointedly at his hat, which Patrick tugs straight on his head as his blush deepens.

Bob doesn't want to know.

"Okay. You two done?" Joe asks around a mouthful of pizza.

"Dude! Always!" Pete exclaims loudly. He bounces a little on his heels, and Brian groans.

"You gave him caffeine, Stump?" Brian accuses. "It's four in the morning!"

Patrick shrugs. "I'm not his mother, Schechter."

"Oh, Christ. What the fuck did I do to deserve you lot," Brian grumbles. He looks at Pete like he wants to order him to go run around the lot until his excess energy has worn off. But it is obviously that Pete isn't going to be dislodged from Patrick, so he doesn't bother. Instead he eats his portion of the pizza. He does slap Pete's hand away from the last slice of mushrooms and peppers.

When all of them are finished, Brian does make Pete take the all of the trash, most of it hastily stuffed into a couple of extra grocery bags Bob had stashed under the passenger seat over to the sketchtastic dumpster next to the main building. By the time he gets back, they've got the vans started up again, only this time Brian is riding shotgun to Bob driving with Joe in the backseat in one van with Andy riding shotgun to Matt driving with Patrick in the back. Both of the Joe Specials are with Patrick, who is staring glumly at the mountain of books left to be looked through.

"You're with us, Pete," Andy tells him. "We're doing research."

Pete jumps into the van and slams the door shut. From the muffled cursing from Patrick and the way that Andy rolls his eyes, Bob figures Pete snuggled right up into Patrick's space.

Brian and Bob smile brightly at Andy before they pull away. Brian searches for a cd to listen to that won't drive either him or Bob up the wall as Bob pulls out onto the highway again. Joe is already snoring in the back, but Bob isn't too bothered by it – Joe's snores are certainly better than listening to whatever it is that Andy and Matt have to be hearing from Pete and Patrick.

Brian finally just pops in Dookie, muttering about his cds disappearing. Bob ignores his grumbling, inching the volume up a little higher as he checks his rearview for the other van. When he sees them, he settles back into a position he knows he can hold for several hours' worth of driving.

|-|

Bob wonders idly if the sun here ever actually moves or if he keeps falling into this nightmare at the same time. It certainly never feels any cooler.

He doesn't want to, but Bob forces himself to walk over to the bodies. He isn't going to figure out what happened and how to prevent it if he keeps turning and walking away.

The first thing he notices is the lack of stench coming from the bodies. Odd considering how hot it is. And the fact that the bodies are obviously not the freshest ones in the market.

The second is that Brian looks older than he should be, complete with a couple of scars Bob has never seen before – one stretching down the length of Brian's throat, three others crisscrossing the width of his left arm.

The third is that Bob can't get within six feet of the bodies before the wind comes up and physically shoves him backwards again.

After his third attempt to get to Brian, Bob stands were he had been shoved and stares hard at the punk-rock kid. Bob thinks he sees a scorpion on the kid's neck and 'HALLO' on the knuckles of his right hand, but he isn't sure if he should try again just to catch another glimpse. For the lack of a better description, the wind feels angrier now than it had. Bob isn't all that interested in testing the theory of whether or not dying in your dreams means you die outside of them, too.

Bob glares one last time at the bodies and the sun before walking back to the van. A chill races down his spine but Bob forces himself to remember that it is just a nightmare. It isn't real; it hasn't happened yet.

Just a nightmare.

|-|

Andy's friends turn out to be not so much human as they are demons. Bob is perplexed at this at first, but when nothing tries to eat him, he relaxes. As far as he figures, if there are good humans and bad humans, there might as well be good and bad not-humans, too.

He is, however, a little annoyed at the way Andy visibly relaxes after he introduces Bob, Brian and Matt, like he actually thought any of them would attack someone Andy calls friend just because they're not human. Okay, not so much annoyed as he is offended, and he knows Brian feels the same way, too, judging by the glare he's leveling at Andy. Matt, as always, is completely chill.

"Good to see you again, Marty, Josh," Pete says, reaching over the counter to initiate some complicated handshake that Bob doesn't even bother trying to follow.

"Same, Pete," the dude says when they're finished. If it isn't for the gills at the base of their necks and the antennae sticking out of their hair, Bob never would have known they weren't human. Granted, if Bob had met them before he learned about vampires and all that shit, he probably would have just thought that they were the same type of weirdoes that dressed up in costumes to go to conventions and shit.

Not that Bob has any experience with that or whatever. And it isn't like Bob would have ever entered a store that proclaimed itself to be authentically magic related.

"So, what brings you to our humble store, Hurley?" Josh asks, leaning on the counter so that he can look Andy in the eye. The dude's tall enough to make Andy look even more like a hobbit than usual. Bob's trying not to laugh at the scowl on Andy's face.

"Ever hear of a demon that calls itself Kilky and likes to fuck around as a weird ass peacock? Or a cobra going around calling herself Starship?" Joe asks from where he's jumped onto another counter. He just grins at Josh when the demon glares at him.

"This have anything to do with that forest grove appearing over in Oregon?" Marty asks. He looks at Josh for clarification.

"Got it in one," Joe tells him, before Josh can answer.

Marty rubs at the skin around his left set of gills. "Any particular reason you guys are coming to us with this?"

Andy narrows his eyes. "You've never had a problem talking to me about shit before."

Josh shrugs, standing back up. "You haven't come to us asking about the servants of gods before, either."

Patrick groans and tugs on his hat. "Perfect. It wasn't just being an arrogant ass then."

Josh smirks, displaying a rather sharp set of teeth. "You might want to be a little more careful about how you address this Kilky, kid. He could make your life miserable to live."

Brian barks out a sharp laugh, matching Josh smirk for smirk. "He lives in a van with Pete Wentz, there isn't that much more miserable a person could be."

"Ah, ah, ah," Josh admonishes, his pointer finger waving back and forth warningly. "Don't tempt Fate like that, son. Bad things happen when you tempt Fate."

"Please, lay off with the wise man act. Do you have information on Kilky or not? Because, honestly, I'd rather spend the next ten years in a van with an unwashed Pete than stand around here longer then I have to. Do you realize that your shop smells worse than Patrick's feet after a show?" Brian snaps. He glares at Josh.

Josh blinks first. "You're pretty feisty for a human."

Bob chuckles. "You should see him when he's actually angry."

"Okay, okay. Josh, enough," Marty says. He pushes Josh aside, pointing at a stack of books and folders at the back of the shop. "Can you get the book I was reading earlier?"

Josh makes a disgruntled noise, but goes to fetch the book as asked.

"Sorry about that. His wife is thinking of courting another male this season," Marty explains with a shrug. Like that actually explains anything. Though by the way Andy grimaces and nods, it probably just doesn't mean anything to Bob. "Before we actually start, can I ask you something?"

Matt blinks, shifting away from the wall that he'd been leaning against. "Sure."

"You part of the Cortez Clan?" Marty asks. "My grandmother's been trying to get in touch with a chick whose picture looks like you, only female, for months."

Matt nods, frowning. "Yeah. But mi bisabuela doesn't like talking to strangers."

Marty shrugs. "Okay. I don't actually know what the deal is, but my grannie is seriously wigging out about something. Like she had an argument with this Carmen person, and now the world is going to end if they don't chat. I don't even know, dude. She's just driving me nuts with it."

Matt blinks. "Is your grannie Samantha Burer?"

Marty nods. "Yep. Grannie Sammy."

Matt laughs, settling back against the wall. "I'll let mi bisabuela know."

"Awesome, dude. I appreciate the help, even if you are from another Clan," Marty says with a big grin. He ignores the confused looks on the rest of their faces and claps. The door to the shop, which had been propped open, slams shut, the lock clicking into place and the sign flipping over to 'Closed.' "Let's get down to business."

|-|

"Wait. So you're telling us you have no idea what is going on?" Patrick says. It's three hours after Marty had locked them up in the shop. Three long hours filled with Marty talking, Brian and Patrick arguing, and Josh glowering. Bob is both tired and annoyed, and he's half tempted to hit Marty when he shrugs and looks apologetic.

"Look, there just isn't that much information available about these guys. As far as anyone knows, they're legit, but what gods they work for? No idea. And I haven't come across that prophecy you mentioned anywhere. Trust me, dude. I've been looking for weeks, through everything." He shrugs again. "The most I can figure is it has something to do with the Slayer, what with the watching and being watched."

Pete blinks. "The Vampire Slayer? I thought that was a myth."

Josh shakes his head. "Not a myth. There's been this girl down in southern California for the last couple of years. Definitely real."

"So we're supposed to find the Slayer's Watcher and rescue him?" Joe wonders out loud.

Marty shakes his head. "I don't think so. The Slayer and her little group don't move around. Your prophecy says the guy you're looking for is traveling." He shrugs again. "Sorry, guys. I'll keep looking, but I don't think there's really all that much out there for you."

Andy sighs, but he nods. "I thought as much, but asking doesn't hurt. Thanks for your time, guys."

Marty stands up when Andy does, and everyone else follows their lead. "No problem, man. Like I said, I'll keep looking. If I come up with anything, you'll be the first ones to know."

|-|

The next couple of days are spent researching. At least, the time they don't spend bugging Matt about his conversation with Marty. It takes Pete and Joe approximately one day, sixteen hours, twelve minutes and forty-six seconds to crack Matt, and about three minutes for him to raise more questions then he'll answer.

Yes, Bob times the entire process. He even steals Brian's stopwatch for the task. Research is fucking boring.

"I'm a demon," Matt finally tells them over coffee and waffles at a local diner that Marty had suggested. "Well, three quarters anyway. My father was half, but my mother is full. We're Vaiven demons, the Cortez clan specifically. Mi bisabuela is clan head, and that's pretty much it." Matt shrugs before going back to his waffles.

"So, wait. You're basically royalty?" Pete asks his eyes wide. He bounces in place a couple of times.

Bob thinks that Pete may have had too much caffeine again, and pushes Pete's coffee cup further away from him. Pete doesn't notice, because he's too busy staring at Matt.

Matt shrugs. "Not really. But that whole thing with Marty? It happens." And that's all he'll say on the subject.

Their next show isn't until the following day, but the guys have four interviews in that time, and Andy has given Bob and Matt a list of local specialty shops to check out while Brian keeps an eye on the band. Bob had been planning to go by himself, but Matt had read over the list and invited himself along.

"You're going to want me there for some of this," is what he says.

Bob blinks. "Why? Because you're part demon?"

Matt shrugs. "Something like that." And Bob goes along with it, mostly because he knows he doesn't want to be bumming around Olympia, Washington by himself.

They don't find anything interesting or hear anything that sheds any light on either the prophecy or Kilky. They do, however, manage to restock both first aid kits and Joe's magic bag, and Bob finds a really interesting looking knife. The shop owner shares a smirk with Matt before he gives Bob an eighty percent discount on it. Matt refuses to tell Bob what all that is about, but Bob buys the knife anyway. He's a firm believer of never being too prepared for a situation.

So, other than Bob's knife and the restock, nothing happens to Bob or Matt. They come back to the motel only partially empty handed, but the guys don't care. They're too busy bouncing off the walls.

"Island wants to sign us!" Pete shouts when Bob and Matt walk in the door. Pete's bouncing on one of the beds with Joe, and when he turns to throw victory arms up at Bob and Matt, Joe tackles him with a loud cackle. "Ow, motherfucker. You are so going down!" The two of them roll over the bed, each grappling for the upper hand, even though they're both laughing too much to be very effective. Then they roll off the near side and knock Patrick to the ground with them.

Patrick starts shouting, and Pete's attention diverts from Joe to Patrick. Joe scrambles out of the way. Bob catches a glimpse of his huge ass grin and wide bright eyes right before Joe launches himself at Bob.

Bob doesn't have anywhere to go as he's laden down with the bags, and Matt just laughs from behind him while Joe somehow manages to climb Bob until he's hugging Bob's head to his chest.

"We're signed to a major label, Bob! It's awesome! You should totally congratulate us!" Joe shouts. He keeps squeezing until Bob finally manages to extract his hands from the bags and shove Joe off of him. Joe lands on the floor with a thud and squeak.

"That's awesome, Trohman. Stay the fuck off of me," Bob sighs. He shakes his head and rubs at his ears. Matt is still laughing behind him, hard enough that he's choking on air, and Bob turns to glare at him. "You are an ass, Cortez."

Matt just waves a hand at him as he slides down the door, where he then curls up, occasionally wiping a tear from his cheek. Bob kicks his leg.

"How'd your day go, honey?" Brian asks. He's leaning against the wall between the dresser and the bathroom, and he's totally laughing at Bob. "Did you bring home the bacon? Or just the rest of the store?"

Bob scowls at him. Brian isn't at all fazed by this, which just makes Bob scowl harder. "No bacon, Cupcake, but enough shit to fully restock the kits even after I pound the shit out of you."

"No more information?" Andy asks. He's sitting at the small table in the corner, one eye obviously on Patrick and Pete, who are shoving each other around between the beds. He's smiling wide, though. That and the way he's twirling a drumstick around his fingers are the only indications of his own excitement.

"No. Either no one knows anything or they just aren't willing to tell us," Bob says. He picks up the bags he'd dropped and brings them over to the table.

"Presents?" Joe asks. He jumps up from where he'd landed when Bob had shoved him off and scrambles over to the table. He pushes past Bob and starts rooting through the bags. "Witch Hazel? Awesome! Arrowroot, sweet! Been looking everywhere for that. What else did you find?"

Bob goes to stand by Brian, well out of the way of Joe's flailing hands. "So, what happened?"

"I kick ass, that's what," Brian tells him, completely serious. But Bob can see the small smile on his face and how loose his shoulders are.

"Someone's obviously satisfied with himself," someone who is most definitely not Bob says, right before there's a POP! and a somewhat ruffled bird appears on the dresser next to Brian.

Both Bob and Brian jerk away from the dresser. As they move, something shoots past Bob's head. It turns out to be Andy's drumstick, which doesn't hit its intended target, but only because it is hovering in mid-air about three inches from Kilky's head.

"Now, now, Andrew John Hurley, is that any way to treat a visitor?" Kilky asks. One of its tentacles reaches up and grabs the drumstick, snapping it in half by crushing the middle section into sawdust.

"Only the uninvited ones," Andy says. He's standing up now, one of his knives in his hand. Pete and Patrick are on their feet as well, and Joe is sketching a quick symbol into the air – Bob doesn't recognize it, but he's pretty sure it's the spell Marty had shown him to create a small bubble space where Joe can still cast spells, even in a magically deadened area.

"Don't bother with all that, Joseph Mark Trohman. You won't need it as I'm not here to fight," Kilky says. Its tentacle curls back under a couple of feathers, leaving the decimated remains of Andy's drumstick littering the motel carpet.

Joe snorts. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't bother to listen to you."

Kilky shrugs, looking wholly unconcerned. It turns its head towards the door as Matt stands up and Kilky's beady little eyes widen when they take Matt in. "Well, well, well! Isn't this a nice surprise! You boys are hanging out with Matthew Esteban Cortez. You've certainly come up in the world."

Matt scowls. The air shimmers around him. One second there's the Matt Cortez Bob has known for a couple of years standing in front of them, the next there's a demon that's obviously still Matt, only not quite. Matt's now a tiny bit wider, mostly in the shoulders and torso, and his fingers end in small but what Bob would bet are very sharp claws. His eyes are still the same brown color as before, but there is a blue tint to them. And Bob can see the shimmer of tiny blue scales on the exposed portions of Matt's skin.

"And he shows his true face! Marvelous, marvelous!" Kilky laughs. It bounces up and down on its tiny clawed feet, leaving marks in the dresser that Bob isn't looking forward to trying to explain to the motel.

"One of us has to show basic manners," Matt says. His teeth look very, very sharp. "You are a disgrace to your masters, bird-boy."

"Whoever they are," Patrick mutters.

Matt nods. "Patrick has a point, bird-boy. You can't expect us to do the bidding of anyone on just your word." Matt cocks his hip to one side and crosses his arms over his chest. With the way he is standing straight up and tilting his head up so that he is literally looking down on Kilky, it is obvious Matt doesn't think much of their unexpected and unwanted visitor.

Kilky sniffs. "I don't have to answer to you, Matthew Esteban Cortez. And it just so happens that I'm not allowed to release that information to you."

Andy slowly rotates his wrist, letting the light catch on the sharp edges of his knife. "You may have stopped my drumstick, feather head, but that won't stop me from trying again with this. I doubt you'll be able to stop all of us at once."

Kilky ruffles its feathers. "As I already told your Joseph Mark Trohman, Andrew John Hurley, I have not come to fight."

"Then how about you cut to the chase and tell us why you are here?" Andy asks.

Kilky pulls itself to its full height. It's about as impressive as when Pete tries doing the same thing to Patrick. "I came to clarify a few things, such as just who the prophecy was meant for."

"Really," Bob says, drawing out the word skeptically.

"Yes," Kilky sighs. "Although it is quite amusing to see how much your Patrick Martin Stump cares for Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third, his concern is wrongly place. You see, the prophecy was for you, Robert Cory Nathaniel Bryar, and no one else."

Bob blinks. Then he scowls. "Fuck off." He even crosses his arms over his chest for emphasis.

"Oh, please, Robert Cory Nathaniel Bryar, you look like a petulant child. Accept that you have been tapped by my masters, the gods, to do this deed that will keep the forces of good and evil on equal terms." Kilky glares at him. "Trust me; it's just easier that way."

"Do you ever get tired of saying people's full names like that?" Joe asks. "It seriously makes for some pretty dull conversation."

"It is how these things are done," Kilky tells Joe.

Matt snorts. "Yeah, sure. For pompous jackasses that like to piss people off more than they like to do their jobs." He waves his hand at Kilky. "Just go away before I eat you."

"You can't just banish me, Matthew Esteban Cortez! I am the informant of the go..." Kilky can't say anything further than that because Matt hadn't just been suggesting that dismissal, he'd been casting it. Kilky disappears from the room with a faint squawk and a cloud of tiny blue feathers, most of which somehow finds itself floating over to Bob.

"I hate guys like that," Matt mutters, shaking himself. "Self-important fucktards."

Brian raises an eyebrow in Matt's direction as he helps Bob brush the feathers off of him. "Really. Care to fill us in there, Matthew Esteban?"

"Fuck you." Matt scowls. "I doubt that thing really works for anyone important, and if it does it's doing a piss poor job of it. Mi bisabuela would have its head for acting like that."

Bob and Brian look at each other. Bob shrugs and waves Brian forward. He's never seen Matt like this, and frankly, calming strange people is Brian's job. Bob just makes things sound decent and occasionally acts as a bouncer slash bodyguard. Brian scowls and swats at Bob.

"You going to fill us in, man, or do we have to keep playing twenty questions?" Brian asks.

Matt shrugs. "I doubt that it works for any god, so it's either delusional or the things it works for are."

"What makes you say that?" Joe asks.

"The gods are showy," Matt tells him. He shakes his head and shudders, and between one second and the next, Matt reverts back to his human form. "If you'd found the prophecy on a scroll at the back of a cave after fighting off a horde of zombies, then you'd have the god's handy work."

"So basically, you're saying we're dealing with a delusional demon working for other delusional demons who think that we mere humans wouldn't be able to understand that they're not actually gods?" Andy asks. He plucks a stray feather out of Brian's hair.

Matt nods. "Pretty much."

"Great. So we're dealing with a group of demons who want to use Bob for their own nefarious purposes?" Pete asks. He frowns. "I don't think I'm cool with you and Brian going off on your own with this on the table."

"Wait. What?" Bob asks. "Who said we were going anywhere? What, you're suddenly signed to a major label and we're not good enough for you now, Wentz?"

"It's not like that, Bob! You know I adore you!" Pete scowls. "It's just a matter of life and death, seriously!"

Bob snorts and glares at him some more.

"Bob, really. We wouldn't try to get rid of either of you if it wasn't something important," Patrick tells him. "I've gotten word of some kid down south who's setting a lot of shit on fire. We can't go, what with, you know, the tour and the signing with a major label and all, but you and Brian should be able to handle it on your own."

"A kid. Who is setting shit on fire." Bob rubs a hand over his face. He can not believe this is his life now: demons, magic, and small time pyromaniacs. "How exactly is that our problem? Call the fucking fire department."

"Well, we think he might be doing it with his mind," Joe says. "Or with magic. Can't really be sure until someone checks it out." He shrugs, going back to sorting through the shit that Bob and Matt had brought back. "Powdered rams horn, neat! I've always wanted to try this shit."

Bob blinks, then changes tactics. "You knew about this," he accuses Brian. He points his finger and everything.

Brian shrugs. "Because you want to work as a sound tech forever."

"And you think spanking kids who play with fire is a better use of my degree?" Bob asks.

Brian blinks, then grimaces. "Thank you for that, Bryar. Really."

Bob glares. "You know what I meant, Schechter."

"Oh, come on, Bob. You knew as well as I did that we weren't going to be hanging out with Fall Out Boy forever," Brian snaps. "Why the fuck do you think we were learning all this shit!" He throws his hand out toward Pete and Patrick, like the two of them encompass everything dealing with, around, or about the supernatural ever.

"Yeah, no shit, Schechter!"

"Then what's the fucking problem?"

"You obviously didn't think I needed to be kept in the loop on this!" Bob snaps, throwing his own arms out in frustration. He and Brian stare at each other, glaring, their chests moving heavily as they breathe deeply.

"Holy fuck! Dragon's blood!" Joe exclaims. He holds two blood red bottles up, one in each hand, liquid gently swaying in the bottles. He looks back and forth between Bob and Matt in astonishment. "How the fuck did you find this? And is it real?"

Matt nods. "It's real. One of the shopkeepers knew one of my father's step-sisters mother-in-laws and owed her a favor. She's dead, so I got it."

"Holy fuck!" Joe says again. "So cool!"

Bob sighs. He closes his eyes and rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "You're welcome, Trohman." Bob can feel Patrick and Brian looking at him with concern.

"One of shopkeepers' kids offered to eat him," Matt explains.

"Oh, gross," Patrick says.

"Apparently it's some kind of a compliment," Matt says. "Not that Bob took it that way. Whatever. It got us a discount on the blood and the rosemary – dragon's blood is fucking pricey this far north."

"Really." Brian sighs. Then he ignores Matt's response to poke Bob in the shoulder. "So, Bryar. We need to head to Kansas to keep this pryo kid from killing his entire town. The band can't come because they have to finish their tour and record a new album, and Matt's their new manager. So it's just the two of us. What do you say?"

Bob swats Brian's hand away from his side. He opens his eyes to glare at Brian, but it's half-hearted. Brian can definitely tell because he smirks at Bob. "Fine, Schechter. You're doing the driving though."

Pete jumps onto Bob's back. "Yay! Dad and Daddy aren't fighting anymore! Group hug!"

Bob grunts and elbows Pete in the side. "Fuck off, Wentz." But Pete doesn't budge and then Bob has a Joe clinging to his side. "Motherfuckers, get off of me!"

"Nope! You're stuck with us forever and ever, Bryar!" Pete shouts.

Bob can see Andy laughing at him through his reflection in the mirror. "At least when we're not on tour, and you're not chasing ghosts across the country."

"Welcome to the family, Bryar," Patrick laughs.

Bob sighs. There are certainly worse families to be in, that's for sure. That still doesn't stop him from punching Pete and Joe to knock them off of him.

|-|

As it turns out, the kid isn't setting things on fire with his mind nor is he doing it with magic. He isn't actually setting things on fire. His dog on the other hand...

"Your dog, Betsy the basset hound?" Brian asks. Then he pauses before asking again, "Your dog is setting things on fire?"

The animal in question barks her reply. Her owner just shrugs. "Weirder shit has happened, man. Trust me."

"Kid, even knowing what I know, which I assure you is more than you would ever imagine, I can honestly tell you that no. No, weirder shit has not happened," Brian informs him.

Bob isn't sure how Brian is keeping a straight face. Bob's trying, but he's pretty much fighting a losing battle. Especially when Betsy the basset hound flops over on her back at Brian's feet, using them to scratch at a spot she just couldn't reach. Bob pretty much just gives up trying when Brian scowls down at her, then steps away gingerly like he's half expecting the dog to shit on him.

Or set him on fire, as the case may be.

"She won't hurt you," the kid protests, glaring at Brian. He whistles, and Betsy jumps to her feet, running over to his side. He reaches down to scratch her head, which sends her floppy ears flying. "Betsy's a good dog, really sweet. Everyone says so."

"You also said she's set buildings, fences, and Mr. Colin's toupee on fire," Brian returns, scowling. He crosses his arms over his chest. "Forgive me if I'm unwilling to cuddle up with a fire starting mutt, kid."

"She's a purebred, asshole, and my name is 'Alex', not 'kid'," Alex snaps, returning Brian's scowl. Betsy stands up and cocks her head at Brian.

Bob takes a deep breath, trying to quell the giggles pressing in at the back of his throat. As amusing as the thought of a pyrokinetic basset hound is, Bob really doesn't want to see her in action, and Bob's beginning to suspect how that comes about.

"Hey, lay off, man. Being grumpy isn't going to solve anything." Bob punches Brian in the shoulder to hammer his point home. Brain glares, but he closes his mouth against whatever scathing retort he had lined up.

Bob turns back to Alex. "Sorry about him; Brian isn't much of a dog person, and he gets extra cranky when he hasn't had a lot of sleep."

Alex glares at Bob, too. "You were laughing at her." The kid can't be more than fifteen, and there's definitely a pout on his face.

Bob shrugs, hoping it looks apologetic. "Sorry, but a basset hound that sets things on fire?"

The kid pouts for another couple of seconds, then grudgingly smiles. "Crazy, right? I'd never believe it if I hadn't seen it myself."

"It is a little farfetched," Bob agrees.

Betsy is still staring at Brian with an intensity that is a little too familiar for Bob's sanity. So he kneels on one knee to put himself on her level. That gets her attention, and Bob puts his hands out for her to sniff. She does, and then Bob has a lap full of squirming dog.

Alex watches Betsy try to lick Bob's face off for a few seconds before he nods. "Okay, Betsy likes both of you, and she's a pretty decent judge of people, so I guess we can trust you."

"Oh, joy," Brian deadpans. He and Alex glare at each other some more. "So. How about you start talking then?"

|-|

Bob is exhausted and thinking of nothing more than eating his weight in Chinese takeout, possibly showering (probably not), and then sleeping for at least nine hours by the time he makes it back to his and Brian's motel room that night with said Chinese takeout in his hands. He has to juggle the bags with his left hand and knee before he can get the key in the lock and the door open. Brian is definitely inside, Bob can hear the TV playing with the volume turned way down low, but Bob knows that Brian won't bother to open the door for Bob.

Well, Brian won't open the door for anyone; it's a throwback from too many tours with too many insomniacs looking for someone to ramble to. Brian especially won't open the door if he knows that it is Bob. Because Brian is an asshole like that.

"Took you long enough, Bryar. What the hell? Did you have to go all the way to China for the food?" Brian asks when Bob is finally inside the room, kicking the door shut with more force than is strictly necessary.

"You are an asshole," Bob tells him. He drops the bags on the table before he starts to unload the food.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Brian replies. He's smirking as he puts down the papers he was flipping through and starts picking through the boxes. He pushes Bob's choices aside, all the way to the opposite side of the table from where Bob flopped into a chair, and pulls his own food over to where he flops down into his own chair. "You are totally imagining things. Did you remember to ask for forks, or were you afraid they'd give you cat for your silly Americanisms?"

Bob throws a prewrapped fork at Brian's head and laughs when it bounces off his forehead. "Just because you're a loser who can't manage a simple pair of chopsticks, don't try lumping me in with your lame ass."

Brian flips him off with one hand as he uses his teeth to tear open the fork packaging. Then he dives into his General Tao's, and Bob follows his lead with his decidingly tastier Chicken and Broccoli.

When the two of them surface twenty minutes later, Brian pushes a couple of papers towards Bob. "So, I was looking into some of the stuff that that kid..."

"Alex," Bob reminds him. He puts down the decimated remains of his fried rice and picked up the papers.

"Right, whatever." Brian waves his hand in the air. "Anyway, there's a shitload of weird shit about this town on the web and those." He points at the papers in Bob's hand. "Are the shit most pertinent to us."

"Crop circles? Cow decapitations?" Bob's eyebrow could be mating with his hair right now it's so high on his forehead. "Streets designed to form a pentagram? What the fuck?"

Brian smiles at him. "That's not even the best part. The kid? He lives at 126 Penta Circle. Dead smack in the middle of the fucking pentagram."

Bob waits for the punch line, but of course Brian makes him ask the question. "Yeah? And that's important why?"

"126? Break the 12 down and you have 666." Brian hands him another sheet of paper. Half of it is a newspaper article that Bob doesn't bother to read, mostly because he's distracted by the pictures on the left. "Yeah, those are five recorded incidents of satanic sacrifices, and those first two aren't fucking farm animals."

"Fuck."

Brian nods. "Pretty much. Unless we are completely of the mark, we're probably dealing with something demonic in nature."

"Or a ghost or two," Bob points out.

Brian waves a hand in the air. "Whichever. Either one is probably going to involve fast talking and even faster spell work."

Bob looks through the papers Brian had given him. He focuses on reading the text, not so much interested in the guts and gore that Hollywood would drool over in the pictures. Then he puts the papers down and reaches for his cell. "I'm calling Patrick."

"What? You don't trust my research skills?" Brian mocks.

"No. I want another opinion." Bob snorts. "What, would you rather we just go in there and perform an exorcism, and then find out we're dealing with a pissed off ghost that we should have salted and burned?"

Brian waves his hand again. "Do whatever you want, Bryar. My food is getting cold."

Bob flips him off while his cell rings. It picks up on the third ring. "Stump."

"If it isn't Bryar and Schechter, out there saving lives and hunting things."

"Wentz," Bob sighs. Bob pinches the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding his cell; Brian is smirking at him. "Shut up."

"Aw, Bob! Why so grumpy? You two are out there fighting the good fight!"

"Whatever you say, Wentz. Put Patrick on the phone."

"You are such a spoilsport, Bryar," Pete sighs into the phone. A scuffing sound comes over the line, closely followed by Pete saying, "Bob missed his Lunchbox, Lunchbox!"

"Mother of fuck, Pete! Get off of me," Patrick snaps his voice louder than necessary over the line. Pete must have shoved the phone right against Patrick's mouth. Then Bob hears a loud thump, followed by Pete's shocked squawk. "It hasn't even been a week, Bryar. You really miss me that much?"

"Bite me, Lunchbox," Bob replies. Brian raises an eyebrow at him, but Bob shakes his head in reply.

A door opens on Patrick's end, and Pete's whining is cut off by the sound of traffic. Patrick's growl sounds extra testy through the background noise. "Don't fucking call me that, asshole."

Bob hums his reply, deliberately off-key. He wonders idly if Pete has worked Patrick up enough that he'll start ranting should Bob push him enough. Only a part of Bob wishes that Pete has; the rest of him doesn't want to miss the fireworks.

"Fuck off, Bryar," Patrick snaps. "What'd you want?"

Bob decides discretion is the better part of valor – or at least that he doesn't want to rile Patrick up if he won't have the pleasure of watching the resulting bloodbath. "Turns out the kid is not using his mind nor is he using magic to light shit on fire."

"Then what's he using?"

"He isn't using anything."

Patrick sighs. "I am not in the mood for riddles, man. Out with it."

"The kid, Alex, isn't setting shit on fire: his dog is."

There's a long moment of stunned silence, followed closely by a suspicious, "Pete put you up to this, didn't he?"

Bob snorts. "Right. Because I'd go in with Wentz on anything, much less a fucking practical joke when I'm five hundred miles away."

"Point," Patrick agrees. There's a pause. "What kind of dog?"

"Basset hound." Bob taps his finger against the table top.

"Really."

"Really, really."

"Huh."

"Yep."

There's another pause, during which Bob watches Brian roll his eyes and start shuffling through the paperwork he'd put aside during dinner.

"What's your problem then?" Patrick wants to know.

"Kid lives in a house at the center of a street-made pentagram, address 126 Penta circle, home of one hundred years of unpleasant supernatural shenanigans."

"Lemme guess," Patrick sighs. "Human sacrifice?"

Bob is impressed. "You found Brian's articles."

Bob can almost hear Patrick roll his eyes. "No. You sound like you want to crush small baby animals under your boot heels."

"Really."

"Really, really."

"Huh."

"Yep."

"You two are fucking creepy," Brian cuts in, not looking up from his papers.

Bob flips him off anyway. "Any thoughts, Lunchbox?"

"I'm glad the two of you are dealing with this mess and not me."

"Funny."

"I thought so." Bob can hear the smirk in Patrick's voice. "I'll guess that the two of you have narrowed this down to either demons or ghosts. Am I right?"

"I'm partial to the latter," Bob admits.

"Then why are you calling me?"

"With that fucking bird around?"

"True." Patrick sighs. "Specking of Kilky, we haven't heard a squawk or seen a feather from the annoying fucker. You?"

Bob frowns. "You have any idea how hard it is to get blue feathers out of a van?"

"Ah," Patrick says. "What'd the bird have to say?"

Bob snorts. "It hasn't, but it left several calling cards." A day after they'd left for Kansas, they'd come back from breakfast in a very, very cheap roadside dinner to find the entire interior of the van covered in tiny blue feathers. Bob is still cleaning feathers out of his clean laundry duffle.

"Aw, you're still finding feathers in your underwear, aren't you?" Patrick laughs.

"Stump," Bob warns. He picks a chopstick out of his take-out and spins it around his fingers. "I'd like that second opinion sometime before the next century."

"Christ, Bryar, lighten up," Patrick laughs.

"Yeah. I'll work on that," Bob says darkly. He taps the chopstick loudly against the tabletop.

"126 Penta Circle, right?" Patrick asks. "Penta Circle is actually a pentagram, and 126 breaks down to 666."

"That's what we've figured," Bob agrees.

"Personally, that sounds a hell of a lot like a demon to me," Patrick muses. "But unless said demon has been hanging around since..."

"1845 was the first recorded sacrifice, last one was in the 30s," Bob fills in. He reads through the notes Brian has scribbled in the margins. "Penta Circle was first built then. Apparently, they mixed iron in with the dirt when they were laying it out. Then again with the mix when the roads where first paved in the fifties, and every time since."

"Right, unless the demon has been hanging around since the thirties and has decided that just hanging out is a better use of its time than killing people and causing trouble, you're probably looking at a ghost," Patrick continues. "It could be someone from the sacrifices or..."

"Someone more recent who's been trapped by the pentagram," Bob finishes. "Brian's looking through death records for the kid's neighborhood for the last ten years and cross referencing it with all of odd reports or stories that have cropped up since then."

Brian looks up from his papers long enough to glare at Bob. "Which you could be helping me with, asshole."

"I'm on the phone, Cupcake," Bob tells him with a grin. "Perhaps when I'm finished with my business."

Brian throws his empty lo main box at Bob, who knocks it away with a faint laugh.

"I think I'll go, Bryar," Patrick interrupts. "Before I have to listen to Brian kill you. I still don't want to be a witness to homicide, even if it is via phone."

"Right, Stump. Keep using that old excuse," Bob laughs.

"Later, Bryar," Patrick says. Bob catches the sound of a sliding door opening just before the connection is cut.

Bob tosses his cell down and starts collecting the empty take-out boxes. "Patrick thinks it's probably a ghost."

Brian grunts. "We'll see." He picks up a second pile of papers and hands it to Bob when Bob comes back to the table. "Start looking, asshole. Gonna be a long night."

"Isn't it always?"

|-|

"You think Betsy is possessed?" Alex asks. He's currently sitting on a fence rail in his back yard. The dog in question is curled up at his feet, eyes glued on Brian.

Brian shrugs. "You've said that this is a new development. The whole fire starting thing."

"Yeah, but Betsy hasn't been acting any differently lately," Alex protests.

"She set your neighbor's hair on fire when he thought you were mowing over his prized petunias," Bob points out. He glances over at the flowers in question, which still look singed weeks later.

"They're lilies, and Betsy's always been protective," Alex snaps. He jumps off the fence and stands in front of his dog, who yawns up at him.

"Look, kid, barking is something a dog does to protect its owner. Biting. Even pissing, but setting shit on fire?" Brian says. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares at Alex. "That isn't normal for any value of normal."

Alex glares back at Brian, shifting to match his stance. A silence descends and Bob is suddenly reminded of why he's never having children: they grow into teenagers.

"Okay, you said that Betsy started acting weird right after you and your friends messed around with that Ouija board?" Bob asks when it is apparent the other two have no plans of continuing the conversation.

Alex shrugs, eyes flickering over at Bob for a second. "Yeah. But nothing happened! Nate said he was the one moving the cursor thing. And it's an old house: lights flicker, shit happens."

Bob decides to try a different tactic. "If this keeps up, Alex, she could kill someone. That happens? The best case scenario? She has to be put down. Worst case? You go to prison for a very, very long time."

Alex pales. Then he shakes his head. "No, that won't happen. I wouldn't let it."

"You won't have a choice, Alex," Brian tells him. "I'd trust Bob on this. He knows the weirdest shit."

Betsy stands up and leans against her master's leg. He looks down and rubs her head, sending her ears flapping. After a few minutes of tense silence, he takes a deep breath and looks up at Bob. "Okay. What do I have to do?"

"Leave that up to us," Bob tells him and lets Brian explain the plan.

|-|

It takes another two days, one stop to a local tea shop and pet boutique, and a shit ton of salt to the face of one really, really pissed off ghost from the turn of the century, but Bob and Brian manage to drive east out of Kansas with all of their limbs intact. Alex and a ghost-free Betsy are happily reunited, and while Mr. Colin's lilies will never be the same, Bob's willing to call that one a win.

"That was different," Brian comments as he drives down a back road that the map swears will lead them straight to a major road. Bob isn't holding his breath. They passed the state line about six miles back.

"Yep. A fire-starting, ghost-hosting basset hound," Bob agrees. He folds the map back together, tapping the edge of it against the door to the drumline playing on the radio. "I never would have seen that coming."

"And you expected vampires and werewolves?" Brian asks dryly.

Bob shrugs. "They make movies about 'em, so not quite as farfetched as a pryo-mutt."

"What I can't believe is you wishing the kid luck in Vegas," Brian says. "What are you, his fairy godmother?"

"And your 'don't let Betsy eat anyone' was any classier?" Bob returns. "At least a pryo-mutt wouldn't be out of place in Vegas. Hell, she could probably be a star on the strip, make the kid a shit ton for college or whatever."

Brian grunts. They fall silent while they pass through yet another small town. After passing a farmer trailing a shit-wagon, Brian asks, "How long until the coast?"

"Assuming you actually find the highway? Or any paved road?" Bob says. He tosses the map onto the dashboard. "Little over a day."

"You're the one with the map, princess," Brian points out.

"And you're the one not listening to me, Cupcake," Bob returns. Brian flips him off, and Bob leans back in his seat. Knowing Brian's sense of direction, they'll probably end up in West Virginia instead of Georgia, but Bob isn't in a hurry. They've got time.

|-|

This time Bob tries walking around the edge of the battlefield to get to the bodies further out. He's tried a bunch of different things in each of his previous nightmares, but nothing is getting him any closer to anything but a face full of feathers.

He tries going right first, but there's a pile of boulders next to a clump of mostly dead trees. He can't climb the boulders because the wind keeps blowing feathers into his eyes every time he tries, and Bob isn't going to attempt to climb a pile of rocks with his eyes closed.

He doesn't try going through small grove because the trees themselves don't look all that inviting. Bob isn't an idiot. Nightmare or not, he isn't about to go into a grove of mostly dead trees when his gut is churning at him to run very, very far away. That and the wind completely dies around him when he moves toward them, which sends all the alarms in his head ringing; the wind hasn't stop blowing once since the first nightmare.

Unable to go to the right, Bob tries the left. He's brought up about twenty feet short of Joe and Andy by a small creek that Bob hadn't noticed before. There's no sound of the water crashing over the rocks, the size of the splashes the only indication of the speed of the moving water. The creek is just wide enough that Bob wouldn't be able to jump it. Somehow Bob is sure that even if he only put a finger into the water, he'd be whisked away to his death. And Bob still isn't ready to try that whole dying in dreams/dying in real life theory.

He stands there for a few minutes, racking his brains for a way to get across, but comes up empty. He's also fairly certain that even if he managed to jump the creek, the wind would have thrown him back into the water before his feet had even touched the other bank.

He walks back over to where he always starts this nightmare, twenty feet from Brian and the other two bodies with him. On a whim, he picks up a loose rock and throws it towards the bodies. It stops dead six feet away, and hovers in the air for a couple of seconds before dropping to the ground.

Yeah, he hadn't thought that would work.

He turns and walks to the running van. He'll figure this out. He will.

Now if he could just get rid of the feeling that time is running short.

|-|

"Brian, why is there a peacock on the hood of the van?" Bob asks. His bad day obviously isn't going to get any better.

"I'm not sure, Bob, but it looks awfully familiar," Brian admits.

The two of them are just leaving the bed and breakfast they'd found a room at for the duration of their case in lower Georgia, and Bob is both cranky and sore. Turns out most ghosts are really, really unimpressed when you try to kill them off permanently, and not just when they're inhabiting lovable, slobbering mutts.

"Think the landlady will call the cops if I try to kill it?" Bob asks.

"Yep," Brian nods. "But she'll probably shoot you first."

Bob sighs. Probably. Even having worked in numerous clubs and bars across the country, Bob has never met anyone who is so attached to a shotgun. He's pretty much come to the conclusion that people who run inns and hotels are fucking insane.

He shifts his duffle to his left side, ignoring his shoulder's protests. He'd only been thrown into a few walls, not like the spikes or glass shards had actually hit him. "Guess we should talk to it."

"Joy of joys," Brian mutters. "Now she won't just think that we're gay, she'll think we're both gay and nuts."

Bob chuckles. "At least she got it three-quarters right."

Brian glances over at Bob, promising a painful death with his glare. "Not the time for your utterly unfunny jokes, Bryar."

"Lighten up, Cupcake," Bob orders. "My jokes are always funny."

Brian snorts and stomps over to the van. He stops in front of it, hands on his hips and glaring at Kilky, who gives every impression of smirking at Brian. "What the fuck do you want, bird-brain?"

"Now, Brian Adam Schechter, that isn't any way to great an old friend," Kilky replies. It fluffs up its feathers and resettles itself so that its tail feathers are spread along the hood and up the windshield. The feathers glitter in the morning sun.

Bob opens the side door of the van and tosses his duffle inside, slamming the door shut with more force than is particularly necessary. The movement rocks the entire van, and Kilky skids across the hood, just barely stopping itself from sliding off into the dirt driveway at Brian's feet. "You're making assumptions that neither of us like, feather head."

Kilky shakes itself and tries to look like it had meant to do that. "That was rude, Robert Nathanial Cory Bryar."

Bob shrugs, coming up to stand next to Brian. He doesn't feel the least bit bothered by his actions. "You were asked a question, feather head. I'd suggest you answer."

Kilky pulls itself to its full height, the extra feet of the van allowing it to look down on the two of them like a judgmental school teacher. "Or just what will happen, Robert Nathanial Cory Bryar? Only a fool would attack the messenger of my masters, the gods, and as much as I am loathe to admit it, you are no fool. Even if your dreadful habit of ignoring the messages sent to you would provide proof otherwise."

"Or Bob here will kill and skin you so that we have something to enjoy for dinner," Brian returns.

Bob holds up his knife and waves it so that Kilky can have a full glimpse of it. He returns Kilky's glare with a smirk of his own. "Start talking."

Kilky heaves a great put upon sigh. "I was sent to inquire as to why you, Robert Nathanial Cory Bryar, have not set forth to accomplish the deed set before you by my masters, the gods."

Brian rubs his hand over his face, grumbling under his breath. "Look, it isn't like you've given us much to work with here, bird-boy. You want him to look for a man, traveling with four other men, one of which who isn't exactly a man anymore. And this man might possibly have something to do with the myth of the Vampire Slayer, which is a myth that might not actually be a myth."

"Precisely," Kilky nods. "And instead of looking for this man, you two are running around vanquishing disgruntled spirits."

Bob shrugs. "We have to make a living." He puts his knife back into the sheath at his side, then takes Brian's duffle from him. "Because you don't seem like the type to pick up on context clues, I'm going to tell you this straight out, feather head. Go away."

"Neither of you have the power to banish me, Robert Nathaniel Cory Bryar," Kilky replies haughtily.

"Nope," Bob agrees as he walks over and opens the side door again. Brian's duffle goes on the floor next to Bob's. Bob only sets it down gently because the laptop is in there. "But we do have the power to knock you on your ass and run you over."

"Don't tempt him, Kilky," Brian advises. "Bob's had a hard couple of days, seeing as that last disgruntled spirit tried to stake him to the ground like Bob was an iron rail for the railroad. He'd be more than happy to run you over; it's stress relief."

"I hate having to repeat myself," Kilky snaps. "You can't kill me!"

"We never said anything about killing you, bird-brain." Brian shrugs and walks over to the passenger side door; Bob's already climbed into the driver's seat. "Causing you terrible, debilitating pain is good enough for both of us."

Kilky spins around on the hood to face both of them. "Fine, act like the children that you are. I do have other matters of importance to see to, you know."

"We're sure," Bob drawls skeptically. He starts the van and puts it in gear, letting his left hand hang out of the window.

Kilky glares at him. "I do, Robert Nathanial Cory Bryar, just as you have a prophecy of your own to see to. I'd suggest you pay closer attention to your dreams, you silly human, for they are your future if you continue to ignore your destiny." The bird demon shakes itself one last time before disappearing with a POP! and a shower of blue feathers.

Bob scowls as he turns on the wipers to try and get rid of the ones that landed on the windshield. "What's the likelihood the crazy lady with the shotgun missed all of that?"

Brian snorts and motions over to the house. The bed and breakfast owner is standing on the porch steps, shotgun in hand, and jaw hanging nearly to her chest. "Not very likely."

"Yeah," Bob says. "I was afraid of that." He takes his foot off of the brakes and presses the gas down, pulling out of the small parking lot and starting down the tree lined driveway. "How about we get out of here?"

"Sounds like a plan," Brian agrees absently. He's staring out the window, watching the trees blow by. "Sounds like a plan."

|-|

Brian corners Bob that night in the motel room. They'd driven for twelve hours, heading towards Arizona. One of Brian's buddies had told him about a rumor of a mummy running around after the coeds in the upper portion of the state. It isn't like they really have anything more pressing to do at the moment, and if Bob has to deal with another violent ghost anytime soon, he'll kill something.

"What the fuck was Kilky talking about, Bob?" Brian demands, standing between Bob and his shower. "And don't you give me any shit about how you have no idea. It said you were being sent dreams, didn't it?"

Bob sighs and wishes Brian could have done this is the van. It wasn't like the two of them hadn't been cooped up together all day or anything. "Something like that, Schechter."

"Out with it, Bryar." Brian crosses his arms over his chest. "Or I tell Pete that you've fallen madly in love with him. You know he'll feel the need to try to let you down as gently as possible."

Bob glares at Brian. He'd love to be able to call Brian on his bluff, except for the part were Brian isn't bluffing; he'll do it and laugh the entire time Pete is torturing Bob with his apologies and assurances that Bob will one day find someone who is as awesome as Patrick. "I hate you, just for the record."

"Whatever," Brian scoffs. He takes out his cell phone and flips it open. "Out with it."

"You are such a nosey bastard," Bob reminds him. "I've been having a reoccurring nightmare since the Scepters tour."

"Yeah, and?" Brian prods.

Bob rolls his eyes. "It isn't anything important, seriously."

"You've been having the same nightmare for almost eight months, a time span in which you've learned that magic and demons are real. Then a shapeshifting demon who likes to prance around as a peacock has told you that you are the center of a prophecy that, when fulfilled, means you've saved the life of a guy who is traveling around the country with three other living guys and one guy who they think is still alive, but is actually dead, and this guy is also somehow involved with the myth of the Vampire Slayer, which turns out might not be as much of a myth as we all thought," Brian recaps. "And you don't think that your reoccurring nightmare isn't important?"

Bob scratches around the scab on his neck. "You might have a point there."

"Bob, if you don't start talking, I swear I will beat you to death right here," Brian warns.

Bob sighs. "Do you want a full recap or just an over view?"

Brian glares at him. "Will I have to break your fingers for any of the details?"

"I'm always standing at the edge of a dusty field. In the dream, I mean," Bob clarifies, rubbing the back of his neck. He feels like a complete idiot. "To the right is a grove of half dead trees and a pile of boulders. To the left is a small creek. Behind me is the van, which is always running. In front of me is a battlefield. There are bodies of people I know and people I don't." Bob pauses, takes a deep breath. "The sun is always hot, the wind is always blowing, and there are blue fucking feathers everywhere."

Brian cocks his head to the side. "Anyone I know?"

Bob nods. "You, Fall Out Boy, Matt. Some punk-rock kid with a shitload of tattoos and some black girl in a skirt and a tie. I don't recognize anyone else, and I can never move closer for a better look because of the wind."

"You mean you can move around in the dream?" Brian asks. "So it isn't the same thing every time?"

Bob shakes his head. "No, it's the same thing every time. Dust, hot sun, bodies, feathers, and wind. And it's always quiet."

"So you do the same thing every time?" Brian pushes. When Bob just glares at him, Brian sighs and continues, "Do you have control of your body or is someone guiding you? If you don't, then it's probably just a nightmare Kilky or whoever is planting in your thick skull. If you do, then..."

"It's another puzzle to be figured out," Bob finishes, catching on to where Brian is going with this. "I could probably strip and do the hula if the urge struck me."

Brian groans and rubs a hand over his face. "Thanks for that visual, Bryar. Remind me to put 'No naked hula dancing over my dead body' to my will."

Bob smirks. "Sure thing, Cupcake." He takes advantage of Brian's distraction to make a break for the bathroom, where he shuts and locks the door. Bob likes keeping his showers as private as possible, and Brian has no problem just walking in if he thinks there's something that needs to be talked about.

|-|

Brian is looking through what they've dubbed their research bag when Bob comes out of the bathroom. Bob walks past him to the other bed, where he sits and rubs at his hair with an extra towel. He really needs to have his hair cut again.

"Here," Brian says as he shoves a notebook and pen at Bob. He keeps holding it out when Bob just looks at him like he's nuts. "Seriously, take it, Bryar."

Bob does, but only because Brian is likely to throw it at him if he doesn't. "What, Schechter? You want me to sign your yearbook?"

"Please." Brian rolls his eyes as he picks up his bathroom gear from his bed. "What I want you to do is write down everything you can remember about those nightmares. That way we have a better idea of what we're dealing with."

"Huh." Bob looks down at the notebook. "I never would have thought of that."

Brian snorts as he walks to the bathroom. "And that's why I'm the brains of this outfit and you're just the muscle."

Bob thinks about throwing the notebook at him, but Brian shuts the bathroom door before he can act on the thought. Bob tosses the wet towel onto Brian's bed instead and sits down at the table. He might as well start writing the nightmares out now and get it out of the way before Brian starts throwing shit at him. Or calls Pete.

|-|

It takes them a week to track down and remove the curse from the mummies in Arizona. A week of Brian geeking out over Egyptian mythology and Bob fielding phone calls from a jealous Joe, who would "seriously rather be hanging out with mummies than recording, dude. Seriously."

Bob doesn't really have the heart to explain that the mummies weren't all that cool, what with the whole trying to kill Bob and Brian with spears and swords and shit. Besides, he knows that Joe is lying about not wanting to be recording.

After the mummies in Arizona, they spend almost two weeks in Utah avoiding Mormons and hunting black dogs, which Patrick swore up and down to them wouldn't actually be black dogs, because black dogs weren't that far north. Bob had fun listening to Brian read Patrick the Riot Act after Brian was chased through a marsh by a pair of black dogs.

Then they head to Illinois to de-curse a friend of Bob's who ran afoul of a gypsy tribe. Bob is half tempted to leave the idiot to his fate, as Bob is a firm believer of dealing with the consequences of one's actions, but the thought of leaving a guy to moon forever for the girl he cheated on is too much for Bob. There are seriously enough emo-kids in the world without adding another to the bunch.

That takes them a week to sort out, plus a couple of extra days visiting Bob's mother. Brian might be able to get away with not visiting his mother when he's in the area, but if Bob comes anywhere near the Illinois state line he has to visit his mom. Demons are less frightening than Bob's mother when she's mad.

Plus, home cooked food and free laundry. Brian practically skips through the front door after Bob reminds him of that.

They go to Boston next to deal with a nest of vampires that had tired to eat another one of Brian's band friends. They also catch a couple of shows while they're in town, and Bob is offered about six different sound and tour managing positions in one night. He thinks Brian is offered the same, but they don't talk about it.

Mostly because if he isn't talking about one of their cases the only thing Brian wants to talk about is Bob's nightmares. He doesn't believe Bob when he says that he hasn't had another nightmare since the bed and breakfast, and he's started to just ask random questions when Bob is doing something completely unrelated, just to try and trick Bob into saying something he doesn't want to. Bob is ready to kill him. Lucky for Brian, they have an entire nest of vampires for Bob to take his frustration out on.

They're on their way to Oklahoma to trace down a Trickster rumor when Andy calls them about a pack of feral werewolves in Montana.

|-|

"Feral werewolves? Isn't that something of an oxymoron?" Bob asks. Brian has the entire band on speakerphone, and Bob is attempting to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand. Because talking about werewolves means they aren't talking about Bob's nightmares.

"No, and we'll get back to that, Bryar," Pete tells him. "Stop trying to change the topic. I'm just about to get to the part where I explain that your inability to approach the bodies of those that mean the most to you is representative of how you place obstacles between yourself and others in an attempt to keep from being hurt, which is directly contradictory to how you want to make friends with others."

Bob tightens his grip on the steering wheel and tries not to growl. He doesn't want to egg Pete and Joe on. Not that either of them really need the encouragement to keep going – they've been psychoanalyzing Bob's nightmares for the last half hour.

"See, the way we figure it, the boulders and the creek represent the obstacles you put up to keep yourself emotionally detached from the people around you and vice versa," Pete continues. "The wind represents the preconceived notions of society telling you that as a man, you are not allowed to show emotionally attachment, because it is a sign of weakness, and men are not allowed to be weak."

"Conversely, the grove giving you the heebie-jeebies gives you those heebie-jeebies because it aligns with those preconceived societal notions of avoiding emotional attachment. Should you choose to exit the battlefield through the grove, you renounce any emotional connection you may or may not have with the bodies in the field," Joe takes over. "Every time you choose to head back to the van, you make the choice to renounce the preconceived societal notions, thus revealing your conflicted..."

"Enough!" Bob shouts. He cannot believe he has wasted an hour of his life on this bullshit. "This topic is officially over. Andy, the werewolves. Now."

"Aw, come on, Bob! Joe was just getting to the good part!" Pete exclaims. "He has this entire thing about your father..."

"Wentz, if you don't lay off, I am going to kill you," Bob growls. He flicks on the turn signal and passes the tractor trailer he and Brian have been following for the last twenty miles at a speed perhaps best left to any number of racetracks.

"Christ, Bryar, that was a blind curve!" Brian squeaks. He has both his armrest and the door handle in a white knuckle grip. "Maybe we should pull over. I can drive."

Bob glares at Brian, who snaps his mouth shut and goes back to staring out the windshield. "Andy, I am going to hang up in three seconds."

"You seriously need to lighten up, Bryar," Andy comments mildly. There's the sound of shuffling papers before he continues. "There have been six freak animal attacks reported in three neighboring northern Montana towns over the last three months, three of which have been confirmed as werewolf in origin by a friend of mine. She's been looking into it but has hit dead ends on every one of her leads. She'd like a second opinion."

"We'd go, except for that whole touring thing," Joe breaks in.

"And we've a case we're working right now," Patrick adds with a sigh. Bob can picture the glare he's giving both Pete and Joe. "Some scene kid managed to piss off a coven and is now sporting a set of antlers."

"Have you guys any idea what it's like trying to get information out of witch coven? Unreal, seriously," Pete interject.

"You should try nomadic gypsy tropes. They're even more fun," Brian says dryly. "You have an address for us, Hurley?"

Andy recites the address, and Brian jots it down in his now ever-present notebook. "Janice won't be there by the time you guys arrive. She's heading out of town tonight to handle a family problem in Milwaukee, but she's letting you use her house for the duration of the case. Her key is under the deer head on the porch, and she's leaving her notes on the dining room table."

Bob sighs. It figures they wouldn't be able to talk to this Janice directly; that would be too fucking easy. "Anything else we need to be aware of?"

"Don't touch her bedroom," Andy warns. "And avoid the white paper packages in her freezer. You don't want to know what's in them."

"Right," Brian says. He even makes an extra note of it in his notebook.

"Oh! Don't forget that werewolves have super attuned senses, and that they hate silver," Pete interrupts again. "Like, even worse than vampires."

"No shit, Wentz," Bob snaps. "Call us if you have anything more pertinent to add, Hurley." He reaches over and cuts the connection before Pete can do anything more than draw the breath to no doubt interject some insightful thought as to why Bob is holding a stake and not his favorite battle axe in the nightmare and how that relates to Bob's inability to fully connect to the scene in front of him. Or something. Bob really is going to kill that guy when he sees him next.

"You want to slow down a little, Bryar?" Brian asks in a completely normal tone of voice. "Like before you get us pulled over by the Pennsylvania police?"

Bob eases up on the peddle a little. Not because Brian asked, but because Bob doesn't think it's pertinent that he be driving eighty down a curvy mountain road that obviously hasn't been paved in the last century.

Once they're traveling at a speed that more closely resembles the speed limit, Bob glares over at Brian, who is still reading something in his notebook and paying no attention to Bob at all. "You could have stepped in there, Schechter. I know you can't stand to listen to that psychobabble shit any more than I can."

Brian shrugs. "What and ruin your chat time with your little friends? You don't get to talk to them very often, Bob, and I know how much you miss being close to Pete now that he's moved on to the big leagues."

Bob growls a little under his breath. He tires counting to ten in his head in an attempt to calm himself down but gives up when he reaches five and has thought of twenty different ways to kill Brian and hide the body in the middle of one of the remote valleys they're passing through. Instead he speeds up again; driving fast tends to calm him down almost as well as dusting vamps.

Plus, the way Brian squeaks when he takes corners fast enough to rock the van onto two wheels is totally worth the chance of fiery death and or speeding tickets.

|-|

The house at the end of Andy's directions is absolutely nothing like what Bob would have expected from knowing Andy. It's a monstrous two-story log cabin at the very end of a long dirt road about thirty miles from the nearest town. There is a small two bay garage not attached to the cabin to the left, and the front porch, which spans the entire length of the building and wraps around the side not facing the garage, is covered in animal head statues.

Well, mostly animal head statues.

"Is that a Samois demon?" Brian asks, pointing at the ugly three headed, shark toothed bust attached to the wall next to the front doors. "Holy shit, Hurley knows some weird ass people."

"What was your first clue?" Bob shuts the van off and climbs out stiffly. They'd been driving for twelve hours without many rest stops, and his entire lower back is throbbing. He groans loudly when he arches backwards until his spine pops. "Fuck."

"Told you we should have stopped three hundred miles ago," Brian tells him as he climbs out and does some stretches of his own.

Bob glares at him. "Like you wanted to spend the night at Billy Joe's Shack of Deer Guts and Hillbillies."

Brian points to the three-headed bust. "Samois demon."

Bob shrugs. "It's dead, Schechter. Not really something we need to worry about now." He grabs his duffle out of the back of the van and tosses Brian's at him; Brian already has the laptop on him. "Come on, Schechter. I want a shower, something to eat, and a bed to collapse in. Not necessarily in that order."

"What exactly makes you believe you'll find any of those things here?" Brian asks, just barely managing to catch the duffle before it would have slammed into the dirt.

"We're staying in a hunting lodge in backwoods Montana when the owner knew we were coming," Bob points out. He leads the way up the porch steps.

Brian smirks. "You called Hurley at that last rest stop to make sure, didn't you?"

Bob shrugs before he pushes the deer head hanging other the opposite side of the door from the Samois bust aside and pulls the key from the small recess underneath. "I like being sure of shit before I walk into it." He unlocks the door and pushes it open, motioning Brian through first.

"Right." Brian snorts, but he walks into the house. He reaches out to the right for the light switch he can just barely see in the moonlight – the first night of the full moon is in two nights – and flicks the lights on. "Whoa."

"Whoa is right," Bob agrees as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him.

The entire right portion of the building is one large open room. There is a set of French doors at the back of the building leading out from the kitchen to what looks like a very impressive deck. The kitchen itself takes up the back portion of the room with a long and huge wooden table separating it from the living room area, complete with several large couches, chairs, and various tables set up in three sitting areas, the largest facing the huge fireplace set at the center of the house. There is a balcony on the second level that looks over the entire room, stemming off of the staircase that starts next to the hallway leading to the other half of the first floor.

"Holy shit, Hurley knows some interesting people," Brian repeats. He walks around the couches, heading for the dining room table, which is covered in boxes and papers. He picks up a purple paper that was leaning up against one of the boxes and reads, "'Hey, dudes. Hurley said that you should be in tonight. Everything I've managed to scrounge up for this hunt is here on the table. There's food in the fridge and freezer – I'd avoid the butcher paper items, unless you're able to digest shit that's poison for pretty much every human ever – and the guest rooms are on the second floor. The first floor has my bedroom and office – stay the fuck out unless you like the idea of having four heads and tentacles instead of legs. Other than that, enjoy! Hurley has my number if you need it. Janice.'"

Bob takes the paper from Brian and reads it over for himself. "Sounds like someone Hurley would know. Food?"

Brian shrugs. "Go ahead. I'm going to find a shower first." He looks over the pile of stuff on the table. "We're going to have a fun couple of days."

"If she's anywhere near as anal as Hurley, it shouldn't be too bad," Bob says before he drops his duffle on the floor and walks over to the fridge. The inside is fully stocked. Bob grabs some cold cuts and cheese, finds bread in the bread box on the counter and a bread knife in the drawer under the bread box. He makes two sandwiches and puts the leftover food back where he found it.

"Here," he says as he hands one of the sandwiches to Brian, who had started going through the stuff on the table instead of heading upstairs like he said he would be. "Lead the way, Schechter. The sooner we get some sleep, the sooner we can start hunting."

Brian rolls his eyes but puts what he's reading down and leads the way to the stairs all the same. "One day I'm going to stop letting you order me around, Bryar."

Bob laughs. "Yeah, that'll be a cold day in hell, Cupcake, and we both know it."

Brian hums. "Maybe Pete's right. You are delusional."

Bob resists the urge to push Brian over the railing. Instead, he just pushes Brian up the stairs and tries to look innocent when Brian turns and glares accusingly at him. Bob's pretty sure his smirk completely ruins his attempt at innocent.

|-|

The nightmare hasn't changed. The sun is still too hot, the ground is still too dusty, and the wind is still too personified for Bob's comfort. Actually, it's even worse than before because Bob can't get move in any direction except back towards the van without a face full of feathers and a shove backwards.

Still, Bob tries. After falling on his ass for the third time, Bob decides to call it quits. There has to be a better way of going about all this. And he'll figure it out.

He tries not to think about the way the ground seems darker under the bodies or how the bodies themselves are paler. Like they'd been drained of what ever blood that had been left in them.

He will figure this out. Even if he has to listen to Pete and Joe's psychobabble to do it.

|-|

"Christ, Schechter, who taught you how to read a map? The blind guy on the street corner?"  
Bob curses as he stumbles over an exposed tree root for the third time. He knew he shouldn't have let Brian lead the way.

Brian doesn't bother to turn around to glare at him. "Your mom, actually."

"'Your mom' jokes are a sign of an unimaginative mind, Cupcake," Bob tells Brian. Then he curses as he trips over a rock. "This probably wasn't the best idea."

"What was your first clue, Bryar? When you forgot the flashlights, or when we lost the trail?" Brian asks. He pushes some branches aside and lets them snap back in Bob's face. Then he laughs when Bob starts cursing him back to his great-great-grandmother.

They've been lost for over an hour. Bob thinks the house might be a couple of miles south of them, but he's also pretty sure that they've been walking in circles for at least forty minutes. They're going to need to find the trail if they're going to find their way back tonight.

And fuck if they're actually going to find the werewolves tonight. They could have stumbled over them a half dozen times already and never have known it. Fucking things were probably hiding in the shadows and laughing at them, stalking the stupid humans through the backcountry until the amusement fades to boredom and they attack.

It is entirely possible Bob has spent too much time listening to Pete and Joe's psychobabble.

They walk in silence for another ten minutes before Brian stops and points ahead of them. He motions Bob closer before whispering, "I think that's a clearing up ahead. And I'm pretty sure it isn't empty."

Bob ducks down to peer through the bushes separating them from the clearing. There's definitely a clearing there, and it isn't empty, but Bob can't tell if they're werewolves or just drunk humans stumbling around. He isn't sure why there'd be drunk humans stumbling around this far into the backcountry, but if his life in the last eight months has taught him anything, it's that weird shit happens more often than people would expect.

"Yeah," he whispers his agreement. Then he nods his head to the left and mimes moving to the right. When Brian nods his agreement to the plan, Bob starts moving to the right, trying and not quite succeeding in being as quiet at possible. Brian does the same to the left.

Bob's sneak-and-attack plan is going perfectly right up until the moment when Bob trips over yet another exposed root that he just couldn't see, and he falls into the clearing. Bob knocks someone over on his own way to the clearing floor.

There're several minutes of shouting and shoving before Bob manages to extract himself from the guy he'd knocked over and apologize.

Well, start to apologize anyway. Because lying on the ground next to a crossbow (that thankfully hadn't fired) is the punk-rock kid from Bob's nightmare. Well, not kid. Now that Bob can actually get a good look at him, he can see that the kid is closer to Bob's age, maybe younger by a year or two.

"What the fuck, man?" The kid growls, jumping to his feet with all the repressed energy of an ADD terrier puppy. "Are you going to say something, man, or are you just going to keep staring at me like a retarded asshole?"

"Hey, back off!" Brian orders, shoving his way across the clearing and in front of Bob. "It was a fucking accident."

The kid snorts but doesn't do whatever it was he had been planning on doing before Brian interrupted. Instead, he leans down and picks up the crossbow, checking it over for damages.

"Okay, this must look really weird," the tall guy with a white guy 'fro that could rival Joe's says into the resulting silence. He's smiling wide and has his hands up and he looks so much like Brian when Brian is talking down bouncers or cops after whatever stupid stunt his bands had done that Bob almost does a double take. "But I promise you there's a good explanation for all of this."

"Really," Brian comments dryly. He looks over the other four guys – the kid, the tall skinny guy with the bad hair, the greasy-haired drunk, and the big bruiser - and gives 'Fro a smile that fully translates his disbelief. "You five are just out for a nighttime stroll with your swords and crossbows?"

The kid snorts again. "What does it look like, asshole? You'd think we're out night hiking or something."

"Yeah, you're totally granola," Brian snaps. Bob's still too busy trying to unswallow his tongue to actually speak.

"Granola's tasty, but only if it's the kind with honey. It has to be sweet, you know?" The greasy-haired drunk breaks in from where he'd fallen over. He's pulled to his feet by Tall and Skinny. "Don't mind, Frank, man. He's just upset that we haven't found any werewolves yet."

"Werewolves?" Bob blinks, then shakes his head. "You're hunting werewolves?"

'Fro smiles extra wide. "Okay, it sounds completely unbalanced, but we aren't insane, and werewolves actually exist."

"This cannot be happening." Brian rubs a hand over his face with a groan. "First Wentz and his lot, now these guys. Bryar, did you kill kittens in a former life or something?"

Bob swats at Brian, only missing because Pete isn't the only quick fucker Bob knows. "Fuck you, Schechter, this is not my fault."

"Marco tagged you, not me," Brian reminds him.

"'Come on, Bob, do the tour. It's good karma. What could possibly go wrong?'" Bob quotes, scowling at him. "It was your fault I was in that damn bar to begin with."

Brian just smirks at him.

"You aren't freaking out about the werewolves," 'Fro points out. He's still smiling, but now he looks more confused than anything else. "Why aren't you freaking out?"

Brian sighs. "Because we aren't out for a nighttime stroll with our guns and knives."

"Huh?"

"It's werewolf season, Ray, and we aren't the only hunters around," Frank snaps. He looks Bob and Brian over again, then snorts. "Fuck this, man. We aren't going to find anything tonight, not now that Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-klutz have had their fun. I'm going back to the fucking van."

"Frank, wait," greasy-haired drunk says. He grabs a hold of Frank's arm and they have a silent conversation that Bob can't read but recognizes from similar conversations with Brian. "It's a good idea."

"Fuck no, Gee," Frank says, trying to shake his friend off, but the drunk obviously has a stronger grip then it looks like. "We don't even know them!"

"Frank," Tall and Skinny says.

"Mikey, no."

The big bruiser coughs. "I'm with Frank on this one, guys. It's a bad idea."

"Fuck off, Matt." Frank snaps as he finally pulls himself away from Gee. He glares at everyone in the clearing, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping. "There isn't really room in the van for the five of us. How the hell are we supposed to fit two more?"

Gee smiles really, really wide, showing off two even rows of tiny, tiny teeth. He looks like he'd be clapping, too if he could rustle up the coordination. "No worries, Frankie, we'll figure something out."

Bob and Brian look at each other. Bob just shrugs, and Brian sighs again, muttering, "This is so totally your fault, Bryar." Then he turns back to the other five, and smiles his best manager's 'you want to listen to me because I am just that awesome, and I am also the one keeping you out of jail' smile. "We might have a solution for that, actually."

"What? You have a tent we can get extra cozy in?" Matt growls. For a second it looks like the guy is expanding, the air behind his shoulders shimmering, but then Bob blinks, and whatever he saw isn't there anymore.

"No, but we do have a nice hunting lodge we're borrowing from a friend for the duration of this hunt," Bob snaps. Something about that guy is giving him the heebie-jeebies.

"Hunting lodge? You mean a cabin, right?" Mikey asks.

Brian shrugs. "It's more of a mansion than a cabin."

"Mansion?" Frank blinks. Then his face breaks out into a really wide grin, and it's Bob who's blinking. "You know what that means? Showers."

Gee and Mikey give Frank the exact same funny look. "You're so weird, dude."

Frank opens his mouth to say something, but Brian breaks in before a fight can start. "Yes, there are showers. And beds." There are, too, more than enough for another five people on top of the seven of them. Janice's house is fucking huge.

"We're there," Frank tells him, all thought of fighting seemingly disappearing at the thought of a shower. Judging by the layer of filth covering them, which Bob knows from years on the road, it has been a while since they've had the chance. "Lead the way, Kimosabe."

"This is a bad idea, midget," Matt snaps.

Frank waves a hand at him. "Please. If you want to wallow in your own filth in the fucking van while the rest of us shower – yes, Gee, you and Mikey are fucking showering if I have to put a fucking bolt through your heads – and sleep in real beds, be my fucking guest." He points the crossbow at Brian and Bob and waves them forward. "Chop-chop, guys. There's a shower calling my name right now."

Brian raises his eyebrow at the crossbow. "You taking us hostage for a fucking shower?"

Frank looks down at his hand like he hadn't realized what he was doing. Then he grins winningly at them. "Will it get me that shower faster?"

"No," Bob growls.

"Okay," Frank chirps. He releases the arrow and slings the crossbow onto his back using the strap that had been hidden at the bottom of the bow. Then he claps his hands like some sort of demented preschool teacher. "Let's go!"

"We're going to regret this, aren't we?" Brian mutters to Bob after they figure out which path they need to follow. According to the map, they're only about a half a mile from the house, which means they had been wandering in fucking circles.

Bob's eyes stray to Frank, who is bouncing along next to Gee and Mikey. "You have no idea."

|-|

"And that's everything," Brian finishes. He puts the papers he'd been using as reference down and sits back in his chair. "Any questions?"

"Yeah. How long is it going to take you losers to stay out of our way?" Matt says from the section of wall he's currently holding up. "We've work to do, and we don't need a couple of amateurs tripping up the works."

Bob looks Matt over from his seat next to Brian. The guy hasn't stopped complaining yet. He bitched for the entire walk back, he whined when Frank and Ray decided they wanted showers before anything else, he grumbled through raiding the cupboards, and he'd snipped through Brian bringing everyone up to speed from his and Bob's end of things. Bob has no idea how the other four have dealt with living with him; he's known the guy for four hours, and he already wants to tear his head off and ram it firmly up his ass.

"And just how many werewolves have you managed to kill off?" Bob asks quietly. "Because this isn't our first time around the mulberry bush."

Matt bristles, his shoulders coming up off of the wall. "Listen, asshole..."

"Matt, would you knock it off already?" Ray sighs. He runs a hand through his hair, which is still fluffy despite it still being wet from his shower. "We haven't fought werewolves before and they have. It's a logical choice to team up with them."

"Plus they just fed us," Frank pipes in. He's been quiet since his shower, either standing away from everybody else or curling up in a chair by himself. And other than the occasional tapping of a finger or a foot, there's no sign of the barely repressed energy from the walk back to the house. Bob realizes that he doesn't know the guy well enough to have a say anything one way or the other about Frank's habits, but seeing him sitting so still is fucking creepy. "I say that gives them extra points in the goodwill column."

"You would," Matt growls before he pushes away from the wall. "I'm going to walk the perimeter; we wouldn't want you pussies being eaten in your fucking sleep." All of the windows in the living room shake when Matt slams out of the house.

"He always like that?" Brian asks in the resulting silence.

Mikey shakes his head. He's looking through one of the stacks of notes Janice had left behind, Gerard reading quietly over his shoulder. "He's been weirder the last couple of months."

Frank snorts. "Yeah, if by weirder you mean 'pissy little bitch'."

"Frank, please, can we not do this again?" Ray sighs. "You egging him on isn't helping, you know."

Frank snorts again but doesn't reply. Instead he swings to his feet, grabbing his plate from the side table and stalking over to the kitchen.

"There's been some tension lately," Ray admits quietly over the sound of Frank washing the dishes. He shrugs at the questioning look Brain gives him. "We had this case a few months ago, some sort of demon energy sucker. The thing had been gathering energy to open this portal doorway to some hell dimension for its master to come through."

"Hm, fun," Brian comments.

"Yeah," Ray nods. "Well, it nailed Matt pretty bad in the fight. I mean, we thought he was dead for a minute or two there before we killed it. Well, Mikey and Gee did anyway – Frank and I had gotten tangled up in some rope and shit, and it dropped a fucking case of naked dolls on our heads." Ray yawns before continuing. "Anyway, Matt's been a little grumpy ever since."

"And Frank's his favorite target," Bob fills in. Makes sense, in a sort of retarded middle school way. Doesn't change that he doesn't like Matt. "What kind of demon was it?"

"Hilinp."

"Huh," Brian says. He shrugs and starts straightening the clutter on the table in front of him. "You two have any ideas for hunting these assholes?"

"Thought you two had all the experience?" Gerard asks. Mikey glances up from the papers, eyebrow cocked.

Bob shrugs. "We took a couple out about six months ago, but suggestions are always welcome."

"Set a trap," Gerard says. He takes one of the papers out of Mikey's hands and passes it over to Brian. "That clearing we were in, that's where they've been hanging out."

"It's marked on the map, too," Bob agrees. That's why they'd headed out there earlier. Brian had thought they could pretend to stumble in on the werewolves like a couple of stupid, drunk tourists and take them out in the resulting confusion. He hadn't counted on ending up lost like a couple of stupid tourists.

"We found some fur on a couple of the bushes, so they're definitely coming around," Ray confirms.

"Fur? Still there from last month?"

Ray blushes. "Frank jumped me," he mumbles.

"He had to crawl under a bush to get away from him!" Gerard giggles. He falls against Mikey, almost knocking both of them to the floor. Mikey sighs and pushes Gerard behind him, so that Gerard lands between him and the back of the seat.

"The pieces were lodged down at the bottom," Ray explains. He grabs a throw pillow and tosses at Gerard. "Dude, shut up. You had an idea?"

Gerard hiccups, but he manages to get himself back under control. He doesn't move from behind Mikey, though. "Yeah. We set a trap. A bunch of us can hide in the trees and a couple of us stay in the clearing as bait."

"Bait, huh?" Brian asks. He turns to Bob with a smirk on his face.

Bob doesn't like the look on his face one bit. "No, Schechter. Not a chance in hell."

|-|

One of these days, Bob is going to find a way to talk Brian out of the shit he makes Bob do, seriously. The only condolence he has for once again being used as bait is at least this time he isn't being locked away in a small box with the short, tattooed and spazzy guy.

Unfortunately, that doesn't negate the fact that he does have to deal with the short, tattooed and spazzy guy who, like Pete, doesn't understand the idea of personal space. Frank had spent the entire night right next to Bob, annoying him with stupid questions, poking him to gain his attention, and even jumping on his back demanding a piggyback ride at one point.

Even more unfortunate is the werewolves don't show that night. Bob could hear them howling in the distance, but that is it. Which means Bob is going to have to do this again tomorrow. And again in a month if they don't show then.

Frank pokes him again on the way back to the house. Then he runs off to jump on Ray's back when Bob growls and swats at him.

"You're blushing," Brian comments idly.

"You're a dead man walking," Bob snaps back. Brian just hums and saunters away to pull Frank off of Gerard before they fall and he has to take someone to the hospital. Brian, Bob has found, doesn't know how to turn off his manager mode; stick him with a group of immature guys who don't act like they know how to take care of themselves and Brian starts to mother hen them. It'd be cute if Bob didn't want to kill someone.

|-|

Brian manhandles Bob out of the room by his collar. "You can't kill him, Bryar."

"Watch me," Bob growls. He swats at Brian's hands and tries to twist out of Brian's grasp without any success. "I'm gonna throw him through the fucking window."

"You can't," Brian repeats. He pushes Bob into the guest room they are sharing (because the house is fucking creepy with only a handful of people in it, and it isn't like either of them really know the other group well enough to trust them, not really, and besides the room isn't really a room in the sense that most people think when they think 'room'. Seriously, it's like a house set within a house, and the creepiest part is that it's one of four.) and down into a chair. Then Brian shuts and locks the door.

"We may only be on the second floor, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt the bastard," Bob promises. "I'll even make sure to open the window first so Janice doesn't have to replace it."

"No, Bryar. I mean you can't kill him, even if you were throwing him off the Empire State Building," Brian snaps. He turns around and glares at Bob. "That isn't Matt."

Bob looks at Brian for a long moment, then shakes his head. "You're delusional. Did you hit your head on a tree branch or something?"

"What? No, Bryar, shut up," Brian orders. "What I'm saying is that thing in that room masquerading as Matt? It isn't Matt. That's a demon wearing a Matt suit. And I'm pretty sure that's why the other four are acting like drunks and druggies without the added plus of actually taking the drugs or drinking the alcohol."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Bob repeats.

"Ugh, don't make me slap you, Bryar," Brian groans. He goes over to his bag and pulls out a notebook. He flips it open to a page he'd bookmarked, then passes it to Bob.

It's the notebook that Andy had given them, the one with a number of Fall Out Boy's hunts rewritten as a sort of study guide. Brian had read through the entire thing like it was water in the fucking desert; Bob had glanced through it and gone back to practicing his hand-to-hand with Andy. It's not like Bob doesn't like doing research and shit, but old case files are a little dry.

Brian has the notebook open to the case where one of Andy's friend's friend's cousin had been killed by a demon, then the demon had taken over the cousin's body. The demon had run around for a few months sucking up energy from the people around it like a sponge. By the time someone had realized that the cousin wasn't actually the cousin anymore, the demon had been so powerful that the members of Fall Out Boy almost weren't able to kill it.

"You have to be kidding me," Bob says.

Brian smiles grimly. "Nope. Ray said that they fought a Hilinp demon right before Matt and everyone started acting weird, right? Well, that's the same kind of demon that almost killed Andy by using Pete as a skewering rod."

Bob puts the notebook down so that he can cradle his head in his hands. His fucking life, seriously. He takes a few deep breaths to calm down before he lifts his head to look at Brian. "Please tell me you already have a way to kill the bastard?"

"Yeah. Andy has it all written down in there, plus Joe's instructions for the potion part of the spell." Brian sits down on the bed across from Bob and he's frowning. "That's not the problem."

"Let me guess. We can't just cast the spell on the Matt-suit, because the four of them would believe we're killing him and that would negate the spell," Bob sums up.

"Got it in one," Brian agrees. "We have to make him show his true colors, and that isn't going to happen easily."

"Great," Bob sighs. They're fucked. "I fucking hate magic. And demons. They really fucking suck."

"Any ideas?" Brian asks. "Because I've been going over this in my head for the last day, and I haven't thought of a thing."

Bob shrugs. "Not unless you think letting one of the werewolves eat him would work."

Bob had meant that as a bad joke, but Brian's eyes light up in a way that makes Bob want to hide himself in a fallout bunker. This is going to end so badly for him, he can see it now.

|-|

Actually, as it turns out, it mostly just ends badly for Matt. Or, well, it does for the Matt-suit. Bob just ends up with a sprained wrist (from holding down the Matt-suit so Brian could to his magic thing) and another ruined pair of jeans (from both the werewolves getting far too fucking close for Bob's comfort and Ray's attempts to pull Bob off of the Matt-Suit), but at least he isn't dead.

"I'm confused," Gerard repeats.

They're back at the house, spread out in front of the fireplace recapping the evening. Brian's explained everything twice now, and Bob is itching for a shower, some more food, and a full nine hours of sleep. He isn't sure he can handle Brian going through it again.

Apparently neither can Brian because he just sums it up as, "Matt was killed by that Hilinp demon you fought a few months ago. It's spent the time since then sucking you dry of any and all of your positive energies and then feeding off of the resulting negative ones. We couldn't cast the spell to kill it before it showed its true colors, because the magic doesn't work if the people in attendance animatedly believe the demon isn't a demon – no, I can't explain it any better than that."

"So, what you're saying is if that werewolf hadn't bitten Matt, we'd still be dealing with a demon," Ray says.

Bob shrugs. "It was that or shoot him with the crossbow."

"Bob was gunning for the crossbow," Brian says.

Frank snorts. He's laying on the floor in front of the couch Brian and Bob are sharing. "Dude, I would have let him. Matt's been an asshole for too fucking long." He pauses. "Okay, not Matt. Whatever." He waves his hand in the air.

"How'd you know about the spell?" Mikey asks. Bob thinks that the first thing the guy has said since that first night in the clearing. "And what was it going to do with all that energy?"

"It was probably trying to open a portal to one of the further hell dimensions so others could follow it here. A couple friends of ours fought another Hilinp a couple of years ago, that was that one's MO so we're assuming that it's the same for this one," Brian explains. He groans and tries to stretch, pulling up short when the movement tugs at his shoulder – the Matt-suit had slammed him around pretty hard before they'd managed to pin it long enough to pour the potion down its throat.

"Okay, I'm done. I'm taking a fucking shower and sleeping for the next twelve hours," Brian announces as he climbs gingerly to his feet. "I'll kill anyone who bothers me before then." With that he steps over Frank and disappears upstairs.

"He serious?" Ray asks Bob.

Bob just nods tiredly. "You have no idea." He sighs. Might as well get something to eat, because he isn't going to have the chance to shower anytime soon. He just has to keep from collapsing until Brian actually falls asleep, because once Brian's out, he's out, and then a fucking concert could play in there, and Brian wouldn't know the difference.

"I'm making some more sandwiches, anyone want some?" He asks as he walks to the kitchen. He can totally keep from falling asleep until Brian is. Totally.

|-|

After calling and talking to Andy, they decide to hang out at the lodge for a couple more weeks as a precaution. Andy couldn't tell them how long the demon's energy suckage is likely to keep affecting them, and it isn't like they all could use a bit of a break. So they all hang out and get to know each other, and nothing too interesting happens.

Well, until fucking demon-bird shows up five days after the full moon, just appears in the middle of breakfast, sitting at the head of the table and fucking preening.

It uses the same old 'stop shit in mid-air' trick it used on Andy when Frank, Ray, and, surprisingly, Mikey, throw knives at it as soon as they hear the POP! "That wasn't very nice, Frank Anthony Iero Jr, Raymond Manuel Toro-Ortiz, Michael James Way. You should exercise your manners, as I know all of your mothers taught you better."

Bob and Brian just continue to eat, ignoring Kilky as much as it is possible to ignore an arrogant peacock-demon.

"Um, guys? This a friend of yours?" Ray asks after a minute.

Bob shakes his head. "Nope. Just a peacock-demon." He takes a bite of his toast.

"Ignore him, and he'll go away in a minute," Brian adds, popping a blueberry into his mouth.

"I am not amused, Robert Nathaniel Cory Bryar, Brian Adam Schechter," Kilky snaps. "You do not just ignore the messenger of the gods!"

"Did I forget to mention that it's delusional, too?" Bob asks. He takes a long sip of his coffee. "Sorry about that: it's delusional."

Kilky puffs itself up and lets out a loud shriek that forces everyone to cover their ears. Once everyone is glaring at it, it settles down, tucking the tentacles back under its feathers. "Now that I have your attention, I'll continue with my task."

Bob waves him off. "Fuck off, bird-brain. We did what you wanted, now go the fuck away."

"Did we forget to mention that Cortez taught us his little spell for banishing you?" Brian adds. He sketches a pattern out into the air as he talks. "I'd be more than happy to demonstrate."

"You two are complete insufferable," Kilky snaps. "You may believe you've accomplished all the tasks my masters, the gods, have put forth for you, Robert Nathaniel Cory Bryar, but you would be wrong. They congratulate you on a task well done, but you've only just started down this path."

"Oh, fuck off, Kilky! Both you and your 'masters' can sit on a jagged stump and rotate until the world ends for all I care," Bob snaps. He goes back to his breakfast, downing the last of his coffee to keep from trying to kill the thing. As much as he would like to, that would probably just cause more problems than it would be worth. "Brian, if you would get rid of the trash?"

Brian grins evilly. "Sure thing, Bob." He finishes the last section of the pattern and snaps his fingers, and Kilky disappears with a loud squawk. "There, the trash is taken care of. Can you pass the butter, Gerard?"

Gerard passes the butter to Brian with his head cocked quizzically. "Do we ask?"

"It isn't really worth it." Brian shakes his head. "As far as we can figure it out, the thing is pretty much harmless."

"Oh," Gerard says. He reaches over and picks a feather out of Brian's hair. "So it's just the feathers, then?"

Bob scowls down at his plate, which is covered in feathers. "Yep."

"Something about it seemed familiar," Ray murmurs.

"What was that, Ray?" Brian asks.

Ray shakes his head. "Nothing, man. Bob, do you want another plate? I think Mikey might have left something behind."

"Oh, fuck you, Toro," Mikey growls.

So, yeah. Nothing interesting happens. Bob spends most of his time hanging out with Mikey and Frank, because Brian takes to spending all of his time with Gerard and Ray.

|-|

Bob can't figure out what's up with Brian. He's fucking following Gerard and Ray around like a little puppy dog, and it isn't because Brian's in mother-hen-manager mode. No, this is something completely different, and Bob is having the hardest time pining down just what that something is. So when Frank isn't distracting him by being a spastic fucking monkey-man and when Mikey isn't accidentally lighting shit on fire or almost slicing his hands off, Bob is watching Brian with Gerard and Ray.

It finally comes to Bob at the tail end of their two weeks at the house. Bob and Brian are hanging out in the living room while the others are wandering around the grounds. Bob is just thinking that Ray must be on some sort of business call out on the porch when he realizes that he knows what the way Brian is staring at Ray, how Brian's been staring at Ray and Gerard for the last week, what all that means.

"You've got a fucking crush!" Bob laughs as it finally clicks.

"Shut up, asshole," Brian snaps, his head whipping around to glare at Bob, but he can't hide the blush creeping up over his cheeks from Bob.

"Holy shit! You do!" Bob grabs at Brian's shoulder, ignoring Brian's attempts to swat him away. "You haven't had a crush on anyone in fucking years. Which one is it?"

"Christ, Bryar, what are we? Twelve-year-old girls at a slumber party?" Brian snaps. But he doesn't deny what Bob is saying.

Bob just about dies at that. "Both of them? That's just fucking priceless, Cupcake. Can I call your mother and let her know about your upcoming nuptials?"

Brian growls at him, but that just makes Bob laugh harder. Finally Brian just tackles him to the floor and tries to beat him into silence.

That's how Ray and the rest find them twenty minutes later. Brian has Bob pinned on his stomach and is punching him repeatedly in the shoulders, muttering, "Shut up! Shut up! I swear I will kill you, asshole, shut up!" Bob is still laughing, though he's gone from loud belly laughs to giggles.

"Should we leave you guys alone?" Ray asks.

"No, no," Brian says quickly. He jumps to his feet as he's saying that, which just sets Bob off again. Brian kicks him hard in the ribs; Bob rolls away from him. "Ignore him, he's being an idiot."

"Right," Ray says, drawing the word out several extra syllables. He's watching both Brian and Bob closely.

"You're pretty vicious, dude," Gerard comments.

"Only when needed," Brian clarifies. "What'd you need?"

"Oh!" Ray shakes his head, snapping out of his thoughts. "I was just talking to me and Gee's, um, employers? I guess that's what you can call them. Anyway, I think I know what's up with the peacock."

Bob takes a deep breath, rolling to his feet. He's smirking at Brian when he asks, "Really?"

Ray rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah. See, technically Gee and I work for this group called the Watcher's Council. Mostly they deal with the Slayer and anything else that deals with her, but seeing as she's only one person, they fund people like us to go around and hunt the shit she'll never be able to get at."

Brian blinks but nods once he's processed the information. "Okay, you're getting paid to do this shit, understood."

"That's great for you, really," Bob adds. "But I'm more interested in what you know about Kilky."

"You're an impatient fucker, aren't you?" Frank snorts. He flops down onto one of the couches next to Mikey and ignores Bob's glare.

"Right, I was getting to that," Ray says. "Well, there was this whole big thing a couple of years ago and a bunch of the Watchers split from the main group."

"These guys are seriously insane," Gerard adds. "And about twice as arrogant as the rest of the Watchers, which is seriously arrogant, you have no idea. I mean, they're, like, uber upper crust old British guys."

"Right," Ray repeats. "Anyway, our...supervisor? Yeah, that works. Anyway, our supervisor still talks with some of the others from this rogue group, and he thinks they might be calling up demons to do their bidding."

"And Kilky might just be one of those demons," Brian finishes. He and Bob share a long look before Brian sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "How the hell did they latch onto Bob then?"

"One of them is a Seer," Ray explains. He shrugs. "He probably Saw something and is using it as an excuse."

Something tells Bob that there's definitely more to it, but he's not going to prod that particular can of worms. He's done what the prophecy asked, and he's going to leave it at that for now. "Good to know. Where do I send a letter of complaint?"

"You might want to hold off on that, Bryar," Frank says. He's grinning widely.

Bob doesn't think he's going to like this. Still, he has to ask, "Why's that, Iero?"

Ray rubs the back of his neck again. "They want to offer you guys a job."

"They spend months harassing us, and now they want us to work for them?" Brian asks, incredulous. Bob just settles for rolling his eyes and plopping down on the couch across from Frank and Mikey. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly." Gerard nods. "Well, not like they'll kill you if you don't work for them, but totally serious. They can be assholes to work for at times, but they offer a great benefit plan."

"Mostly, they let us do our own thing, and they pay for it," Ray says.

"We do a lot of freelance, too," Mikey puts in. "'Cause I don't work for them."

"Neither do I," Frank admits. "But I'm sort of grandfathered in. So I have to deal with them as much as I'd like not to."

"You aren't British," Bob points out.

"Nope, but my grandmother's sister was a Slayer. My family's been dealing with the WC ever since," Frank explains. Then he shrugs. "There are worse gigs."

"They've sent an arrogant, psychotic peacock-demon to harass us for months," Brian repeats.

"Technically, that was the rogue group, not the main Watcher's Council," Ray points out. "They're offering me and Gee a spot on the Hellmouth in Arizona."

"Well, we've sort of demanded it, but that works, too," Gerard says. He looks at Brian. "Mikey's coming with us. We're extending the offer to you guys."

Brian looks at Bob, who shrugs. "What's a Hellmouth?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. A mouth of hell. Really nasty shit crops up around them, and occasionally something really evil tries to crawl out of it," Ray explains. "We'll be the first wave team, keeping back the forces of evil, yadda yadda yadda."

"It's better than wandering around the country, hoping to find a motel that isn't going to cringe at the blood and slime stains," Gerard points out. Then he ducks his head. "Plus, I'm still a little...off since Matt, you know? It'll be easier to recover stationed in one spot."

Brian nods at that. "Point."

He looks at Bob who shakes his head. He doesn't want to deal with the denizens of hell when the small time cases are already enough. Also watching Brian moon over Ray and Gerard might be funny for the first week or so, but then it'd get really old, really fast.

"Go ahead, Cupcake. I don't mind being on the road, but I know how much you like your luxuries," Bob leers, his eyes flicking over to Ray and Gerard momentarily before settling on Brian again.

Brian glares. "Don't fucking start, asshole."

"So, does that mean you're interested?" Gerard asks. "Because we can totally do a trial run if that'll get you interested."

Bob snorts. "Oh, he's interested, trust me."

"Awesome!" Gerard even claps in his excitement. "And Bob can go with Frankie, because Frank doesn't like staying in one place either! The Watcher's Council already has a house in Snowflake, furnished and everything from the last agent out there, so we just have to drive down and settle in."

Bob snorts. "Snowflake?"

"Perfect name for a Hellmouth, don't you think?" Frank laughs.

|-|

The nightmare hasn't changed. The sun is still hot, the ground is still dusty, the wind is still blowing, and the dead bodies are still dead bodies. Bob takes a small measure of comfort from the lack of the feathers. That probably means he isn't going to have to deal with Kilky anymore. Hopefully anyway.

Bob doesn't move any closer to the bodies, but he can now make out who the bodies belong to further out. Ray and Gerard are draped over a large flat rock next to each other while Mikey's body covers a smaller one that looks female, but Bob can't make anything else out. He's sure he doesn't want to.

He stares for a little while longer, taking in as many details as he can, then he turns back to the van.

Just a nightmare. He's sure of that now.

|-|

Snowflake, Arizona is small town, southwestern USA at its finest. It is quant, cute, and nothing lends itself to the thought that Snowflake is actually a Hellmouth teeming with enough supernatural mumbo-jumbo to bring about the next great apocalypse.

Bob would be killing someone within a week from boredom if he had to stay, seriously.

"Oh, shut up, Bryar," Brian snaps when Bob voices this opinion one too many times.

He, Ray, Gerard, and Mikey have moved into the two storey, three bedroom house on the outskirts of town without much of an issue. Bob wasn't surprised to see Ray and Gerard taking the master bedroom as their own, and Bob, Frank, and Mikey have already made bets on how long it'll take before Brian moves in there, too.

"Seriously, you're going to be stuck in a van with Frank Iero. I'm not exactly sure you have the better end of the deal," Brian continues. Then he smirks. "I bet that's exactly how you want it, isn't it? The space and privacy to make your move."

Bob throws a pair of (unfortunately) clean socks at Brian. "Yeah, that's why I've signed on for this. I mean, I'm not playing house or anything..."

"Oh, fuck you, Bryar!" Brian snaps. He's laughing as he throws the socks back at Bob though, and Bob just puts them into his duffle.

He's almost completely repacked. He and Frank are heading out in the morning for Oklahoma to check out that Trickster rumor. Bob's pretty sure that it'll turn out to be nothing more than a hoax to draw in the tourists, but that'll make it an even better choice to start out with Frank.

"You still worrying about those dreams?" Brian asks. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Bob pack, all traces of amusement gone.

Bob shakes his head. "As cheesy as it is, whatever will be will be. I'll keep an eye on Frank, you keep an eye on the rest of them, and we'll try not to die." He shrugs. "What else is there to do?"

Brian cocks his head to the side. "Well, you could go back to doing sound fulltime. I'm sure Fall Out Boy would take you back. Cork Tree is really taking off, and I think they're supposed to be headlining their next tour."

Bob rolls his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I'm going to trade Frank in for Wentz. Right."

"Aha! You admit it!"

"Admit what? Did you hit your head again?" Bob demands. Brian has been pushing Bob for the last week about his feelings for Frank, which Bob insists are more similar to his feelings for Pete than Brian's are for Ray and Gerard, but then Brian points out that Bob is willingly going out on the road with Frank alone. Bob usually tells Brian to shut up right about then.

"You can't still be denying it," Brian sighs.

"Cupcake, seriously, there is nothing to confirm or deny. I do not have a crush on Frank Iero," Bob repeats for the thirtieth time.

Brian shakes his head again. "We'll see about that, Bryar. We shall see."

|-|

It doesn't take the two of them long to fall into an easy friendship. Frank can be an annoying ass but, for the most part, he knows when to back off. It also helps that he takes the hunting thing more serious than even Bob does. Bob asks him about his work ethic after a couple of weeks on the road, and Frank just shrugs.

"I grew up around this stuff," he explains. "I mean, my dad's aunt was a Slayer, so the hunting bit is in my veins. My mom did her best to give me a normal childhood, but normal is relative, you know? Plus, one of my dad's friends fucked up royally on this hunt once, just because he wasn't paying attention. It was supposed to be an easy hunt, and it almost killed my dad. It did leave him with this huge scar down his side."

Frank shrugs again, taking a long pull of his beer. The light from the bar reflexes in his eyes, and for a second he looks impossibly old. Then he smiles, and the moment passes. "So I put a hundred and ten into the hunting. I'm not about to let my partner die on me."

Bob snorts, but he smiles back. "Good to hear, Iero." He tilts his beer toward Frank and they toast to each other, and to their continued health.

Frank, Bob decides, isn't Brian, but that's okay. There's pretty much no one else Bob would want to be out on the road with. And Bob isn't sure he wants to be admitting to that, no matter that it is the truth, because he knows Brian is laughing somewhere in Snowflake now at Bob's expense, even though Brian has no idea why.

|-|

Bob curses loudly when he finally sees the damage done to his shirt and jeans. There are horizontal tears across the back of the pant legs from the back pocket to down past the knees, and the left shoulder on the shirt is literally hanging on by a thread while the right has been torn to shreds. Those tiny, nasty, little bastards certainly did a number to his clothes, and if he wasn't so pissed, he'd be delirious with happiness that the corresponding portions of his body didn't match the clothes.

"What, man?" Frank asks from where he's hopping around the tiny handicap bathroom, half-in, half-out of his own torn and tattered jeans. "Those your favorites or something?"

"No," Bob scowls. He scowls so he won't do something completely out of character, like pout. Fuck, he's been spending too much time with Frank. "These were my last decent pair. I'm going to look like some wanna-be rent boy until I can buy some more."

Frank stops hopping around so that he can stare at Bob. Frank only has one leg free, the material from that half of the pants pools around his feet while the other leg is still wrapped tightly around Frank's knee. Bob wants to call him on how ridiculous he looks, but Bob also realizes that he's standing around in a clean t-shirt, threadbare boxers, and filthy socks, and he's commenting on how he looks like a rent boy – not so much room to talk.

"What?" Bob grumbles when it becomes apparent that Frank is just going to continue his imitation of a half-dressed statue.

"Dude," Frank says. His eyes are wide enough that Bob's half-tempted to liken him to a hobbit from the Lord of the Rings movies. Bob refrains mostly because he doesn't want to find out that hobbits actually exist and aren't fun, food loving creatures, but little terrifying monsters who like to eat children. "Don't you know how to repair clothing?"

Bob shrugs. "It hasn't really been something I've had to worry too much about."

Frank rolls his eyes and goes back to taking off his clothes. Bob does not watch. Really. "Seriously, dude, you are an idiot. Just sew up the holes."

"Right." Bob makes sure to put the full breadth of his skepticism into his voice.

"Seriously. I do it all the time." Frank jerks his thumb over his shoulder once he finishes pulling on another pair of jeans. Jeans with holes in the knees but not anywhere else. Bob isn't disappointed at all. That Brian voice in his head really needs to shut the fuck up. "There's a sewing kit in my bag. Have at it."

|-|

Frank drives that night to the first motel they find in the next state over. Bob spends the trip in the back of the van with one of the Joe Specials, sewing his little heart out and cursing every time he stabs himself with the needle.

Frank spends most of the trip laughing while Bob blushes and bleeds.

|-|

"Okay. You really haven't done this before," Frank says the next morning after Bob tries on his newly sewn jeans. He eyes the pants with something close to suspicion but even closer to distain. The left leg is two inches shorter than the right, and the right leg is hanging three inches above Bob's ankle. "You seriously, seriously suck at this. Seriously."

Bob blushes. "Shut up."

"No, really," Frank giggles. "So bad."

"No, really," Bob mocks. "Shut up." He turns away from Frank as he takes off the pants, which he then tries to stuff back into his duffle.

Tries being the operative word as Frank grabs them from Bob just as Bob is stuffing them into the duffle.

"Wait. Wait, man. I can fix this, seriously. No worries."

"Really," Bob says, again unable - unwilling - to keep the skepticism out of his voice. He finds himself doing that more than he'd expected.

Frank nods, jeans wrapped around his forearm. He bounces up and down as he says, "Here, I'll make a deal with you. I'll take care of mending shit, if you take care of making sure that the van and shit stays in tip-top shape."

Bob raises an eyebrow at Frank. "I already do that."

Frank shrugs. "Okay. Well, at least now you're getting something out of the deal!"

"Because knowing that the van isn't going to break down on some deserted road so that we end up eaten by crazed supernatural creatures or knowing that we'll have the proper supplies to take care of slash recover from that or a similar issue when it does happen, because it will, isn't enough?" Bob deadpans.

Frank nods enthusiastically. "Exactly."

Bob throws his arms up in the air. "Fine. Whatever. Fix them; I don't care." He turns back to his duffle to search for another pair of jeans that isn't too destroyed for him to wear. Standing around in his boxers isn't embarrassing enough, no. He has to be fucking mocked while standing around half-naked. Awesome.

"Just wait, dude! This will turn out awesome. My grandma taught me how to sew when I was little," Frank giggles. "I also do an awesome cross-stitch!"

|-|

Frank does do an awesome cross-stitch. Bob just wishes he hadn't decided to demonstrate on Bob's favorite pair of jeans. With butterflies. If the guy wasn't so fucking Frank, which Bob has unfortunately developed a deep, deep weakness for, Bob would kill him. Really.

Yeah, Bob doesn't believe that either. Which is sort of the problem.

|-|

They're holed up in a crypt waiting for sunrise. Bob had never though he'd be locked up in a crypt with zombie-vampires lurking outside, trying their damnedest to find a way in to eat his brains. Or drink his blood. It's probably both. Bob honestly isn't too sure. And arguing semantics, especially in his own head where the only participants are himself and himself, doesn't make any sense. Because he'd be very much dead with any of the possible options.

"Gee is going to have a field day with this!" Frank exclaims for the fifth time in ten minutes. He's just as excited by the prospect as he was the first time he'd said it, judging by the way he's bouncing on the edge of the tomb he's declared his seat for the duration. "Hybrids! Between zombies and vampires! Zompires! So cool!"

Bob might even agree with him, except for how he's bleeding through the makeshift bandage from where one of the fuckers managed to grab him before he and Frank made it inside the crypt. Bob rolls his eyes, and goes back to sharpening his knife. Not that the knife needs it. Bob just needs to have something to do with his hands, because the fucking zompires are screeching and moaning like some kind of demented demon orgy, and it's driving Bob slowly insane. Bob doesn't quite trust himself to deal with the creatures outside and Frank inside without something else to focus on.

"Yeah, cool," he mutters in his driest tone. They've been hunting long enough now that Bob doesn't have to look up from his hands to know that Frank is glaring at him.

"It is cool, don't even try to deny it," Frank scowls. Well, Bob can't see if Frank's scowling because he's still watching his hands, but Frank's voice drops a little and goes sort of gravelly when he scowls.

Bob could just stab himself for actually knowing that. Sure it's helpful to know what Frank sounds like in any given situation, so that Bob can track him without his eyes if the need arises, but Bob knows better than that. He really, really needs to get over this stupid fucking crush. Seriously.

"I wonder how it happened anyway," Frank continues. He's kicking his heels against the side of the tomb, making a cloud of dust that tickles Bob's nose. "I can't see a vamp actually snacking on a zombie. I mean, they're creatures of evil and all that, but there has to be a line somewhere, ya know?"

"Maybe a vampire was bitten by a zombie," Bob suggests idly, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. He holds up the blade to the faint moonlight coming in the barred windows near the roof of the crypt, too small for anything but light and small rodents to come through, and nods at what he sees. Then he puts the knife back in its sheath, and the whetstone back into its carrying bag.

Frank hums. "I can see that. But wouldn't the fact that vampires are technically dead stop the zombie virus from spreading?"

Bob looks at Frank for a moment, overcome again that this is his fucking life now. "Dude. Really? Who cares?" He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the creatures they can't see because of a foot and a half of stone and a couple of solid wrought iron doors. "They're trying to eat us."

Frank frowns. "Knowing the particulars of how the creatures came about is an excellent way of coming to an understanding in how to best extract and eradicate them."

Bob blinks. He hates it when Frank starts acting like a Watcher. Granted, Bob's only met the one that tried to convince him of 'joining the good fight' or whatever, but Bob's pretty sure that the rest of the Council is just as starchy. Frank acting like that guy is just plain annoying. And creepy. Really, really fucking creepy. "Whatever, man. They explode when you stake or behead them. Hopefully the sun rising will do the same to them that it does to regular old vampires. That's all I need to know."

"What, and preventing this from happening again isn't a priority?" Frank snaps. He's definitely scowling now.

"You suddenly have the urge to make up pamphlets and go crypt to crypt making sure vampires avoid zombies?" Bob asks, eyebrow raised. "Isn't that more Gerard's gig?"

Frank rolls his eyes. He flops backwards on the tomb, staring at the ceiling and kicking his feet harder against its side. "Whatever."

Bob watches him for a few minutes before he rolls his own eyes. Frank's been cranky the entire week, but considering that week has included not only the present zompires, but two poltergeists and a creepy ass gypsy caravan, Frank being cranky isn't a surprise. Bob's cranky, too. They need a fucking vacation.

"We need a fucking vacation, man," Frank sighs.

Bob blinks but shrugs. It isn't like he doesn't agree. "Yeah. We could head back to Snowflake after this case. Andy's mentioned something about a case up in Canada, but he doesn't have any concrete details yet."

"Not Vancouver. Vancouver is seriously the supernatural pits," Frank says. He pushes himself up onto one elbow. "Weird shit happens in Vancouver; you totally aren't ready for Vancouver."

Bob snorts. "You just like saying Vancouver."

Frank smirks, but doesn't agree or disagree. Then he grimaces when a particularly sharp shriek pierces the air. "Fuck, can't they at least do that in key?"

"They're the undead, Iero," Bob points out. "Everything they are is supposed to make us mere humans uneasy."

Frank grumbles, rubbing at his ear. "You know what I miss?" he asks after a few minutes.

"Um. Your mom?"

"Fuck you, Bryar. Leave my mother out of this," Frank flips him off. "No, I miss going to shows. Fuck, I miss being part of the shows. Playing, man. This job fucking sucks."

Bob doesn't really know what to say to that. Sure he agrees, but. "Yeah, I've got nothing for that."

Frank flips him off again. "What, you trying to tell me that you don't miss going out for the night and not having to worry about anything worse than a couple of drunks bothering you?"

Bob shrugs. "Not really, no."

Frank stares at him for a long moment then rolls his eyes. "Right. I forgot. Bob Bryar is the world's biggest badass. Sorry. It won't happen again."

Bob crosses his arms over his chest and scowls at the floor. "It isn't like that."

"Then what's it like, man," Frank demands. "You know this strong and silent routine of yours sucks, right? I practically spill my entire life story to you, and all I know about you is that you grew up in Chicago, you did sound for awhile, and now you hunt."

Bob rolls his eyes. "What do you want to know?"

"Oh, you're just going to start talking now? What the fuck, Bryar?"

"It isn't like you've bothered to ask before now," Bob points out. Which is true, to a point. Frank is really good at talking about nothing for long periods of time. Bob's just really good at doing the opposite.

Frank frowns. Then he nods. "Right. You might have a point there, Bryar, but don't think that gives you the upper hand here."

"Yeah," Bob draws out. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Fucker," Frank quips. "So. You don't miss going to shows?"

"Not really," Bob admits. If he's being completely honest, Bob hasn't for a while, even before that night in Detroit. "It was a job, it paid the bills, and most of the time it sucked."

"You started doing sound for all that?" Frank couldn't sound more skeptical if he tried. Bob doesn't really blame him.

He shrugs again. "No, actually I wanted to play. Drums, I mean. Working the board was just the easiest way of making money and staying in the scene. I just never found a band I wanted to drum with enough to stop doing sound. I mean, I like eating."

"Huh," Frank says. He stares at Bob for a couple of minutes without saying anything. Bob would be squirming under the scrutiny except for how this is something Frank has been doing since Bob met him. Frank stares for a while (the longest being the two hours through Massachusetts after the imps but before the third set of vampires), he comes to whatever conclusion he comes to, then he does something stupid like jumping on Bob or running his underwear up a flagpole, and then Bob has to try to kill him.

This time Frank stares for so long that Bob gives up staring back and closes his eyes. He knows there's no chance in hell that he'll be able to catch any sleep with the zompires howling outside, but he can rest for a while.

|-|

Frank is still staring three hours later when the sun starts to rise. The shrieks and howls grow louder as if the creatures outside are starting to panic, and ten minutes after the first bright ray of sun shines on the metal bars in the crypt windows, there's silence. Granted, those ten minutes after full of the sound of zompires going POOF! like so many vampires, though the sound is more squishy than the usual dusty POOF!

"You owe me money, Iero," Bob says. He's standing over the two-inch pile of dust outside of the crypt. The dust is all that's left of the zompires, and it's spread over a two foot ring around the crypt. Frank hasn't won a single bet against Bob yet.

Frank scowls at Bob. "Fucker," he mutters. But he reaches for his wallet all the same.

|-|

It takes six months, but Bob and Frank finally manage a couple of weeks where they don't have to be running around the damn country. Seriously, between the fake-Tricksters, the evil imps on crack, the garden variety vampires, ghosts and demons, and the not-so-garden variety zompires, Bob and Frank have barely stopped moving to sleep.

So they head back to Snowflake, planning on annoying the hell out of Brian, Ray and Gerard and figuring out what is up with Mikey, who has moved to Las Vegas with some girl without even telling Frank. Too which Frank had complained loudly and often to Bob.

("Seriously, what kind of best friend doesn't tell you that he's going to fucking elope and runaway to Vegas!" Frank had shouted after Gerard had broken the news during their bi-weekly check-in phone call. "Seriously!"

"Mikeyway, apparently," Bob had commented dryly. Frank had shown his appreciation for the remark by trying to beat Bob to death with his pillow. Bob had lost that round, but only because he'd been laughing too hard to fight back.)

They've only been at the house for about an hour before Gerard jumps up and squeezes the hell out of Bob and says in his hamster-squeaky voice, "Congratulations!" and continues in his fast Jersey accent that Bob can't make heads nor tails of whatever the hell he's saying.

"Gee, seriously, shut up and try again without squeaking," Bob snaps once he's managed to extract himself from Gerard's clutches.

"I'm so proud of you guys! Fighting the good fight and falling in love!" Gerard exclaims, only slightly slower. Bob isn't so sure about the coherent part. "This is so awesome, you guys!"

Bob grabs Gerard by the shoulders and has to force himself not to shake him into making sense. "Gerard, seriously, take a deep breath."

Gerard is still smiling, but he stops talking long enough to do as Bob asks. Then, "Bob!"

"No, Gee," Bob orders. After Gerard snaps his mouth shut – the click is audible and everything, and Bob has to repress his wince – Bob nods. "Okay. Start again. Slowly this time, so I can understand you."

"Bob, I am so happy for you and Frank! Not only are you ridding the world of evil, you two found each other! Awesome!" Gerard exclaims. Then he hugs Bob tight enough to push the air out of Bob's lungs. "Congratulations!"

Looking over Gerard's shoulder, Bob sees Frank laughing his ass off, Brian smirking, and Ray smiling indulgently. Then what Gerard is saying clicks into place. Bob baulks and pushes Gerard back. "What? No! Dude, no! Did Brian let you hit your head again?"

"Oh, Bob, don't be such a sourpuss!" Frank giggles. He's leaning against Ray now and he's barely able to get the words out through his laughter. "Gerard's giving us his best wishes!"

"Shut up, Frank," Bob growls. He seriously can't believe this is his life. Maybe there's a chance that Gerard had hit his head, or had been pulling one of his all nighters again, and that's why he is acting so crazy. Or there's a spell.

Bob perks up a bit at the thought. There totally has to be a spell.

|-|

Turns out it isn't so much a spell as Gerard being delusional. And he's pulling Ray and Brian into the delusion. Ray even goes as far as telling Bob that, "No, dude, seriously. You two act like more of a married couple than the three of us do."

To which Bob replies, "Toro, to be a married couple there has to be only two people. You, Brian and Gee would be three people."

"Shut up, Bryar. Arguing semantics isn't going to change things," Ray tells him before turning away to answer the phone. Bob hadn't thought you could program a landline to do anything but ring. Then again leave it to Brian to have a phone that swears at you until you answer it.

Brian just smirks at him. "Sorry, Bryar, but it's true."

Bob scowls. "Whatever, Cupcake. When did you three hook up?"

"Changing the subject already?" Brian asks.

Bob rolls his eyes. "I have to find the good in this situation somehow." When Brian just raises an eyebrow at him, Bob clarifies, "I had last month in the betting pool."

Brian scowls. Bob is saved from a beating by Ray coming back into the room, Gerard and Frank in tow. Gerard is practically bouncing in place, and Frank is blushing, which. That's a new one for Bob. It's sort of adorable, in a middle school type way.

One day, Bob is going to stop equating the whole of his existence to his teenage years. Really.

"That was Miguel down at the Supermart," Ray says with a sigh, his voice breaking into Bob's thoughts on just why Frank might be blushing. "Apparently, there's a big slime monster-thing – his description, not mine – eating cars in the parking lot and that's bad for business."

"He'd like us to do clean up?" Brian guesses with a sigh. "One of these days he's going to teach his kids not to summon shit in the parking lot."

"Hey," Gerard says. "This is why we're here, Bri."

Brian rolls his eyes. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"I thought you guys were here to prevent, like, the apocalypse," Frank says.

"Those kids are an apocalypse," Brian mutters.

|-|

Bob is unhappy to discover that being covered in slime sucks even more in the desert than it does in the mountains. At least in the mountains, where it is usually cool and slightly humid, slime doesn't harden into a thick shell that takes a hammer to chisel out of it.

Plus Bob's pretty sure that he's lost another pair of jeans, making this his third pair in a month.

"Oh, quit your bitching, Bryar," Frank orders as he carefully chisels over said jeans. He looks up at Bob, paying no mind to what his hands are doing. "I'm sure Ray's figured out some way to take slime out of denim by now. I mean, Hellmouth."

"How about you spend less time thinking about Ray and laundry and more time paying attention to what you're doing?" Bob asks. Frank leers up at him but goes back to looking at what he's chiseling. Bob takes a deep breath and tries not to think of the other things Frank could be doing while on his knees. If Bob's entire lower half wasn't covered in hardened demon slime anyway.

Someone coughs. Bob looks over to see Brian leaning against the doorjamb, eyebrow raised as he takes in Bob standing in the middle of the bathroom bare-chested and barefoot and Frank on his knees in front of him. Bob knows exactly what this looks like, and he fully blames the unexpected turn in their lives that makes even the sight of Frank chiseling demon slime away from Bob's body look like something out of a bad porno.

"Shove it, Schechter," Bob snaps in an attempt to head off whatever asinine thing is about to leave Brian's mouth.

Brian smirks at him. "Not like you don't know what I'm gonna say."

"All the more reason for you not to say it," Bob growls. He shoves down the urge to hit Frank when Frank snickers. "You can shut up, too, Iero."

"What?" Frank asks, far too innocent for Bob's peace of mind. Frank shifts to the left and starts to chisel away the last strip of slime connecting Bob's jeans to his body. "You don't want to hear how Brian was caught in just this same position last month and how it took Ray and Gerard almost a day to get him out? 'Cause the last part of that story is really the kicker."

"Iero, shut up," Brian snaps. He's glaring at Frank, and he's starting to go a little red at the ears.

Bob raises an eyebrow at Brian, who just transfers his glares. "Wait, so it was last month?"

Brian rubs at his face and refuses to look Bob in the eye. "I can't believe I actually missed your ass. What the fuck?"

"Aww, Cupcake, don't be like that. You know I'll always love you best," Bob says, leering at Brian.

Brian flips Bob off, and Frank loses it. He's laughing so hard he has to put the chisel and hammer down, and he rests his head against Bob's hip. Bob absently reaches down and pats the top of his head. "Keep laughing, monkey-boy. You and Mikey owe me money."

Frank waves him off after a minute and finishes chipping Bob out of his pants. "Whatever you say, Bryar. Go shower, as you smell like rotten demon-slime, and that won't get you any of the girls." He stands up on his toes and pats Bob on top of the head before running out of the room cackling.

"It isn't the girls he's interested in!" Brian shouts after him. Then he laughs at Bob, who has stumbled into the vanity and is having difficulties kicking out of his jeans. "You need some help there, Bryar?"

"Fuck you," Bob snarls. He uses the vanity to lever himself up and kicks with both of his legs. The jeans. Well. They don't go flying, but they mostly slide off, and Bob's able to extract his legs without much more pain. Brian is still laughing against the doorjamb, and Bob scowls at him before he turns around and starts the shower. "You going to watch me shower now? Don't you have Ray and Gerard to leer at?"

Brian snorts. "Right, because I haven't already seen what you have to offer, Bryar." He comes into the room, picks up the jeans and takes them out into the hallway, where he leans them against the wall for Ray to take care of. Then he comes back into the bathroom and shuts the door. "Actually I want to talk to you."

"Really," Bob draws out. "And you can't wait until I'm done?" He steps out of his boxers and climbs into the shower. "What do you want?"

"What makes you think I want something?"

Bob resists knocking his head against the tiles. "Schechter, seriously."

Bob can barely hear Brian's sigh over the water. "Fine. I wanted to know if you'd had any contact with Kilky."

"Haven't actually seen the fucker," Bob admits. "But he's left his calling card a time or two." Usually once or twice a month and usually where Frank wouldn't find them. Bob can't figure that out, but he's jotted the fact that he's noticed it into his daily journal entries. Bob hasn't had anymore nightmares, either, aside from the more general ones he's had for most of his life, but he's pretty sure they're just lurking out of sight waiting for his guard to come down.

"Yeah, same here." Brian sighs again.

Bob doesn't have to look around the curtain to know Brian is rubbing his forehead. Instead he washes his hair and waits for Brian to continue.

"We're not done with whatever they want from us, are we?" Brian finally asks when Bob rinses the last of the soap off.

Bob doesn't really think so, but he also isn't too worried about it. He says as much to Brian.

"How the hell can you be so sure?" Brian demands. Bob's pretty sure that if there was room, he'd be pacing the floor.

"There isn't much we can do about it either way," Bob shrugs, turning off the taps and opening the curtain. Brian hands him a towel, and Bob starts to dry off. "And are you really complaining about where all this has gotten you?"

Brian blinks for a moment then stares at him. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck have you done with Bob?"

Bob rolls his eyes. "Shut up, Cupcake, before I shove those jeans down your throat."

Brian breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Okay, so you're still you. Don't do that to me, Bryar, you just about gave me a heart attack."

"Christ, you need to get away from Gerard, Cupcake," Bob says. "You're picking up his melodrama."

"Melodrama isn't a disease," Brian points out. "And like you're much better."

Bob groans, because he knows it's true. "When the hell did we turn into twelve-year-old girls?"

"I blame Wentz," Brian admits.

"Probably the best idea you've ever had," Bob agrees. He wraps the towel around his waist and steps out of the tub.

"The Watcher's Council offered me an official position," Brian tells him. "I'm thinking of taking it."

"They letting you stay here in Snowflake?"

Brian nods. "That's one of my requirements. And I get to pick the shit I work on. I've got enough assholes trying to rule my life that I'm not going to let them do the same."

"You rebel you," Bob quips, shifting to the side to avoid Brian's swat. "I turned them down."

"Figured you would," Brian admits. "You going to take Andy and Patrick up on their offer?"

Bob nods. "I know I can trust them." Andy and Patrick, under the guise of Pete's new record label and clothing line, have started their own version of a Watcher's Council. The pay is shit and the health benefits could be a lot better, but at least Bob doesn't have to say he's a librarian or anything.

"That works," Brian says. He goes to the door, pausing before he leaves to say, "Hurry up and get dressed. We're having a research party for this thing Gerard stumbled across. You and Frank can help us out, and then I'm shipping you off to San Francisco."

"What's in San Fran?" Bob wants to know.

"Jimmy, from Seven Knights Grace, you remember him? Well, apparently he's been told about this ghost wandering the streets and attacking innocent civilians. It isn't a rush job or anything, but it'll keep you two busy," Brian explains. Then he leaves the room, letting all the cool air rush in.

Bob frowns. He knows that Brian has something up his sleeves, and he's pretty sure he isn't going to like it.

|-|

When they roll into San Francisco, they find out that Brian had booked them into a bed and breakfast that catered especially to newlyweds and anniversaries. As the landlady leads them upstairs to their room, Bob's already planning how he's going to kill Brian.

"Your friend said that you two prefer to be discreet, which we here at Harmony completely agree with, but I couldn't help but upgrade you two to the honeymoon suite. If I wasn't so happy with my Marianne, I'd say your Brian is a real sweet talker," Jennifer says. She stops in front of a large oak door on the third floor of the old Victorian and hands Frank the keys. "Now, I left out some complimentary champagne and a few other surprises for you boys. Nothing horrid, I promise you. You call the front desk if you need anything, you hear? Marianne and I are more than happy to help."

Frank smiles at her. "Thank you so much, Jennifer. We really do appreciate this, despite Bob's grumpy face."

Bob scowls at Frank, but that just makes Jennifer laugh. "No worries, dear. You boys have a good night." She even pats Bob on the shoulder before making her way back downstairs.

"I am going to kill him," Bob says when they're inside.

"Aw, sweetie, don't be like that!" Frank giggles. He's already tossed his bag down and has jumped onto the huge king size bed underneath the equally huge skylight. If Bob wasn't so ready to kill something, he'd be impressed with the room. "This is awesome! You have to try this bed. You could toss me around like a ragdoll, and I wouldn't fall off!"

"Don't tempt me, Iero."

"Aww, sugar! I guess that means you do love me!" Frank giggles.

Bob rolls his eyes and decides he's not even going to think about it. They're here for a hunt and then Bob's going to go back to Snowflake to kill Brian.

(Bob's pretty sure he knows how that conversation is going to go:

Brian is going to try to explain himself to Bob so Bob won't kill him in a horribly painful and messy way and Bob is going to be all, "Discreet? What about Frank Iero is discreet?" Because Frank is a fucking spastic monkey and an annoying little fucker besides.

But Brian will probably be all, "Shut up. You should be on your knees thanking me, fucker." Then he'll laugh at Bob, and how is this Bob's life, seriously?)

"Shut up, Iero, and help me. We have a ghost to hunt," Bob growls.

Frank rolls his eyes, but he climbs off the bed. "You are such a spoilsport, Bryar. Christ."

Bob realizes that, but that is also a trait that has kept his ass intact. He's willing to live with it.

|-|

Four days later, Bob is ready to change his mind. Frank has been all over him, hanging off of him in the room and out of it, acting up the whole couple thing. Sure he's being discreet but only for a definition of discreet that takes spazzes like Pete and Frank into account. So Bob's had to deal with Frank holding his hand or wrapping an arm around his waist and using the most ridiculous pet names ever, and Bob is going to kill him. Seriously he is.

They're back in the room after spending the day talking to people along the street that has had the most ghost activity according to Brian's sources. Bob is trying to clean his knives, which usually calms him down enough that he can continue being in the same room as Frank without wanting to kill him, but Frank isn't cooperating.

In fact, Bob's pretty sure that Frank is acting like he is just to get a rise out of Bob.

Normally, Bob would just ignore him until Frank becomes bored and wanders away, but Bob's fairly certain that that isn't going to happen anytime soon. It's like annoying Bob has become Frank's new favorite game.

So when Frank starts bouncing around the room and launching bad innuendoes at Bob (Bob's current favorite is the crack about Bob's 'knife'. Sure it's childish, but it's something that only Frank could pull off without Bob actually knifing him.), Bob calmly puts his knife down. Then he stands up and marches toward Frank until he has Frank pinned against the wall between the armoire and the oversized armchair.

Frank opens his mouth, no doubt to spout off another cheesy pickup line, his eyebrow raised, but Bob doesn't give him the chance to say it, because Bob is calling his fucking bluff. Bob leans in and kisses him, thinking that will finally shut him up. It isn't like Frank would ever follow through with his middle school version of flirting.

Frank stiffens for a moment, his lips unresponsive under Bob's own, but when Bob starts to pull back so that he can gloat and yell, Frank groans and latches onto him. His entire lower body strains up from the wall against Bob, and his hands find themselves in Bob's hair pulling him closer.

This time it's Bob who's shocked. Sure he's spent the last seven months staring after Frank like some lovesick puppy (at least that's how Brian's taken to describing it), but he'd never thought this would actually happen, not ever. Or at least not without a spell or potion or curse involved. He can't really believe this is happening.

Of course, Bob's body isn't having the same problems as his mind currently is. Bob's hands have found their way underneath Frank's t-shirt and are running up and down his spine. Bob's mouth is practically devouring Frank's, tugging hard at his lip ring and biting down when Frank moans.

Bob's mind is still muttering its protests, but Bob feels Frank throbbing against his hip and his own answering response. Bob tells his brain to fuck off as he pulls away from Frank's mouth. He ignores Frank's groaned protest, instead nuzzling his head to the side so that he can bite down on Frank's jugular. Frank gasps and practically melts into Bob's arms.

Bob bites up the length of Frank's neck to his ear, where he closes his lips around the lobe and sucks. Frank whimpers, and Bob smiles.

"What do you want, Frankie?" Bob whispers. He nips the sensitive skin behind Frank's ear before continuing, "You want me to fuck you right here, right against this wall? Or do you want me to pin you to the bed until you're screaming?"

"Fuck, Bob," Frank moans. He uses the hand still in Bob's hair to pull their mouths back together. "Don't fucking care, want both, either, now," he demands when he pulls back. He shoves Bob backwards, putting some space between their bodies. "Just. Naked."

Bob raises his eyebrow at Frank but pulls his shirt over his head. He lets Frank look for a moment before saying, "You, too, Frank, or I go back to cleaning my knives."

Frank snorts but he pulls his own shirt off, tossing it aside. His jeans and boxers following right behind it, and then Bob's the one staring. Frank smirks at him, dragging a hand down his chest before he wraps it around his cock. "See something you like, honey muffin?"

Bob rolls his eyes, because he should have known Frank wouldn't stop pushing, ever, but he doesn't say anything. He just reaches out for the hand on Frank's cock and pulls it off, using it to tug Frank against him again. His other hand comes around Frank, trailing down his spine and landing on Frank's ass, which makes Frank shudder and groan when Bob squeezes it roughly. Bob kisses the noise out of his mouth and doesn't pull away until Frank's knees start to buckle.

Bob slaps Frank on the ass. "On the bed, Iero. Now."

Frank's eyes are dilated when he scrambles away. Bob watches him crawl across the bed – the bed that Bob hasn't been able to fully enjoy because Frank sleeps like a fucking octopus and can't stop annoying the fuck out of Bob even in his sleep – sunlight from the skylight playing across his skin, illuminating some of the tattoos and throwing shadows against others. Frank stops when he reaches the center of the bed and stays on his hands and knees.

Bob takes a minute to just take in the sight, which he has spent months dreaming about, jerking off in the shower when Frank ran out for a cigarette or for food, and he rubs himself through his jeans. Then Frank looks over his shoulder and glares at him. "Seriously, Bryar. Anytime today."

Bob smirks. "I'm just enjoying the view, Iero." He chuckles as he watches Frank's breath catch, and he takes his time unzipping his jeans, loving the way Frank's eyes follow each movement. When he's unzipped, he just shoves the jeans and his boxers to the floor, stepping out of them and kicking them aside.

Frank's eyes stay on him even as he walks across the room to the bedside table, where Bob knows Jennifer had left a full stock of lube and condoms for their convenience (Bob knows because Frank had found them ten minutes into their stay and hadn't shut up about them until Bob threatened to make him eat them, wrappers and all). Bob takes out the lube and some condoms, tossing them onto the bed next to Frank before he climbs up behind him.

Frank's head finally drops when Bob runs a finger from his tailbone to his asshole, rubbing the hole until Frank groans loudly. Then he lubes up a finger and presses inside. Frank isn't exactly loose, but one finger doesn't seem to do much for him if the way he wiggles back against Bob's hand and whines, "More." is any indication. Bob smacks his ass with his other hand in warning before he pushes another finger in beside the first.

Frank doesn't stop wiggling though, and Bob isn't all that interested in really stopping him, because the sight of Frank shoving back on his fingers is something he doesn't think he'll ever be sick of. Bob toys with Frank for a little while, enjoying the sight and the sounds Frank is making before he goes to add a third finger.

"No, no," Frank gasps. He shifts away from Bob's fingers until only the tips are inside of him. He twists so that he can look over his shoulder again, and Bob has to close his eyes to keep from coming right then and there. What he says doesn't help any, either: "I don't need three, just fuck me."

Bob nods. He pulls his fingers out, rubbing them one last time over Frank's ass, not caring that he smears lube everywhere before he scrambles for the condom. It takes him longer than he'd like to admit to get the condom on and lube himself, but then he's pressing inside Frank and he doesn't really care. Frank is hot and tight around him, and he's gone still, but the noises he's making leaves no doubt in Bob's mind that Frank is enjoying himself.

Bob bottoms out and holds onto Frank's hips, giving them both some time to adjust, because if Bob even thinks of moving right now, he's going to explode. He isn't anywhere near ready for this to be over yet.

"Bob, come on," Frank whines after a minute. He can't move because of Bob's grip on hips is holding him flush against Bob, but that doesn't stop him from trying, and Bob suddenly doesn't care for waiting anymore. He pulls out slowly, loving Frank's low groan, then shoves back in hard, encouraged by Frank's, "Yeah, yeah. Just like that, fuck yeah."

Bob keeps changing his angle inward until he finds the one that makes Frank whine and shudder around him, and he speeds up, holding that angle as hard as he is Frank's hips. Frank is a wild thing beneath him, moving in whatever direction Bob will allow, trying to push back into Bob's thrusts until Frank's arms give out and his entire upper body drops to the bed. That changes the angle again and both of them curse when Bob sinks in even further.

Bob can feel his orgasm building at the small of his back, and he slides a hand around Frank's waist. He finds Frank's cock hard and leaking, and he pulls in time to his thrusts. It only takes four before Frank is shouting and coming, and Bob tries to stroke him all the way through it, but Frank clenches down around him like a fucking vice, and Bob's following him right over the edge.

When they've both recovered somewhat, Bob having disposed of the condom and Frank doing his interpretation of a human octopus, Bob has to ask. He doesn't want to, really, but apparently he really has turned into fucking teeny. Fucking Wentz.

"So. What the fuck?" He doesn't look at Frank. Instead he stares up at the skylight in an attempt to blind himself with the sun.

That doesn't mean he can't feel Frank rolling his eyes. "Dude, shut up. You love me, and I love you. Now we're going to kill that fucking ghost and spend the rest of the week holed up here."

Bob opens his mouth to reply then shuts it without saying anything. He looks at Frank, who is holding himself above Bob, and then shrugs. "Okay. That sounds good to me."

Frank smiles even as he rolls his eyes. "Only you could be so fucking blasé about this shit, Bryar."

Bob shrugs again, because it's true. "Shut up. You fucking love it." Then he tugs Frank down into a kiss so he doesn't have to listen to his smart ass response.

There'll be time for that later.

|-|

Oh, Bob totally does kick Brian's ass when they go back to Snowflake. Because, seriously? Nothing about Frank Iero is discreet.

|-|

The End.


End file.
